


Miles and miles behind us

by thewildwilds



Category: Dangan Ronpa, Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Tattoos, Angst, Ballroom Dancing, Best Friends, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Childhood, Comedy, Despair, Drabble Collection, Engagement, Enthusiastic Consent, Epilogue, F/M, Family Drama, Fluff, Freeform, Friendship, Happy Ending, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Kuzupeko - Freeform, Mild Sexual Content, POV Alternating, POV Second Person, Parallels, Pining, Post-Canon, Post-Despair, Pregnancy, Romance, Short, Slice of Life, Tattoos, Teenagers, Terminal Illnesses, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-18
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 19:16:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 29
Words: 26,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8590423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewildwilds/pseuds/thewildwilds
Summary: Now look how far we've come.(A series of Kuzupeko drabbles and prompt fills previously posted on tumblr.)





	1. Starting Line

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/post/150245815358/starting-line) and decided to put it here. This was written in reaction to Episode 9 of Despair Arc.

Peko leans heavily against his shoulder, struggling to hold herself up on her own two feet. It feels unbearably like the moments she runs herself ragged training in the dojo just to please his family and his grip around her automatically tightens. He knows she hates this, appearing vulnerable in front of the whole class, but he’s not letting go of her for a second until he knows without a doubt she’s okay.

Komaeda murmurs something about abandoning all hope of saving Yukizome-sensei, that they don’t stand a chance against this unknown group. He grits his teeth. They can’t just fucking roll over and admit defeat. They have to at least _try._ He’s done with sitting around on his ass, especially when it concerns the people he cares about most.

Peko tugs on his wrist. “You mustn’t,” she pleads, voice still gravelly.

God, it’s hard to look at her when she’s this beat up. It’s unthinkable that somebody could be idiotic enough, ruthless enough, _inhuman_ enough to assault Peko. The fact that the person who did this to her is still out there just pisses him off even further and he can’t _not_ say anything about it.

The words he always struggles to find come easily to his tongue. Everything he feels he puts into this impassioned speech. For once, Peko doesn’t argue, doesn’t say anything that implies she’s less than who she’s meant to be. She must understand by now, just what she means to him, that he’d sooner die than lose her.

But beneath all that, there’s still an anger that burns hotter than anything he’s ever felt before. They think the hitman put in the charge of Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu is the one that’s meant to settle scores, but they’re wrong.

Anyone who hurts Peko has to answer to _him._

 

 

 

She doesn’t remember the last time she’s ever needed to lean on the young master. There may have been moments when they were still children, but those days are gone and she’s needed to be strong for a long time now. It’s embarrassing to be this weak in front of everybody, but her own legs refuse to cooperate.

When the young master begins talking like he means to confront this dangerous group is when she’s finally spurred into action. She doesn’t know who these people that have Yukizome-sensei are or what they want, but if the person she dueled is anything to go by, then they have a powerful ally on their side.

“You mustn’t,” she pleads, digging her fingers into his wrist.

As soon as the words are out of her mouth, he throws her a look so intense she swallows whatever she’s about to say next. She’s never seen him this fierce, this determined before. He’s looking at her like he thinks she’s somebody worthy of his concern and somewhere deep deep down in that recess she used to call a heart, she can feel a sense of ease that’s something like puzzle pieces sliding into place.

She wonders how it took her so long to realize it. She wonders if he realizes it too. That she’s so impossibly in love with him and she has been for years.

But this is neither the time nor the place to be focusing on her affections. Their teacher is in trouble and they must go save her.

 

 

 

When this is all over, they’ll sort out everything between them.


	2. Well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're confused about this already having kudos, it's because I've decided to turn this into a drabble collection. Stay tuned for more because apparently I cannot stop my own hands from writing every Kuzupeko idea that pops into my head.
> 
> Original post is [here](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/post/154403440673/well).

When Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu realizes he’s in love with his best friend, his first thought is, _Fuck._

His second thought is, _Fucking fuck._

His third thought is, _This is going to ruin everything._

It’s not that he doesn’t _want_ to be in love with her—because shit, that would actually be pretty fucking cool holding hands and going on dates and couple selfies and kissing and— Okay, he’s getting a bit ahead of himself.

It’s just that they’ve known each other since they were like three. He doesn’t remember any time of his life that didn’t have her in it. They went to preschool together and though they hadn’t been friends right away, they’d gotten there eventually. In fact, he can distinctly pinpoint the moment when they’d become friends. There had been a mix-up in which driver was going to pick him up after preschool and by the time the teachers had called his parents, they’d both been occupied. Peko had seen him sitting by the door and promptly told her nanny that she wanted to wait with him so he wouldn’t have to be alone. During that time, they had talked and played together. He learned she wanted to be a kendo master and he had been so awestruck that he decided right then and there they were going to be best friends. He would sit with her during snack time and play with her during breaks and she accepted him with a smile. It was simple. It was _easy._

It’s weird because they say you’re supposed to be under the right circumstances to fall in love but they’re just sitting in his room doing their homework. He stretches, needing a distraction from this stupid math problem he’s been stuck on for ten minutes and ends up simply watching her concentrating on her textbook tapping the end of her pen against her temple. Peko’s eyes always get really intense when she’s focused on something; it’s fascinating. A few errant strands have fallen out of her braids and her glasses are slipping just a bit off the bridge of her nose and suddenly the thought strikes him: he is helplessly, hopelessly, head-over-heels in love with Peko Pekoyama.

He’s always known how special she is to him. She’s patient and understanding. She’s strong and brilliant and fierce, everything he strives to be. And she believes in him. God, that’s the part that still gets to him. When he’s stuck wallowing in self-pity after a really bad fight with his parents, she sits down and listens and knows exactly what to say to get him back on his feet again.

But what the hell is he supposed to do? Tell her, _Hey,_ _do you wanna_ _be the girlfriend of the next head of a yakuza clan?_ Fuck that. She’ll feel like she’s being strong-armed into a relationship with him. (Not that she’s ever _minded_ his upbringing in the first place, and that’s probably why they get along so well. She never saw him for his money or his power. She just saw him for him the way he sees her for her.) He’s a wreck and a half; she doesn’t need that in her life.

Peko deserves someone who will treat her right, who will provide for her and move mountains for her, who will wake up early to cook her breakfast when she’s had a long week, who will remind her every second of the day just how loved she is because fuck she deserves it all and so much more.

(Aw, shit. He’s doing it, isn’t he? He’s wishing _he_ could be the one to give her all that. Well, he _could_ if he really wanted to and— Fuck, he wants to, fuck fuck fuck _fuck fuck fuck fuck—_ _)_

“Did you want to ask me something?”

Fuyuhiko jumps in his skin. “Fuck! Huh?”

Peko looks up from her homework and smiles that gentle smile she normally reserves just for him. “You’ve been staring at me for the past ten minutes.”

He feels his face heating up. Hastily, he grabs his textbook and flips it upright onto the table. “No I haven’t! Shut up! I’m not!”

“Okay,” she says, nodding. (She never ever pushes him to do anything he might not be ready to do. Peko is classy like that.) “… But if there’s something troubling you, you know you can tell me, right?”

Shit. When did she get so astute? The blush creeps down his neck and his whole body feels like it’s on fire. He’s not going to tell her what’s been sloshing around his head, of course, so instead he mutters something under his breath that probably amounts to “Yeah, yeah, I got it.”

Fuyuhiko nearly jumps out of his skin for probably the fifth time that night when Peko suddenly leans in close. But she’s not paying any attention to him, she’s looking down at his homework. “Are you still having trouble with that math problem? Here, let me help.”

As Peko tries to explain the base formula, Fuyuhiko finds himself staring again. God, she’s so close. He can practically count every eyelash framing her pretty red eyes and he catches the scent of apricots from her shampoo. (If he puckered his lips right now he’d be able to kiss her on the cheek.) Fuck, when did he get this weak for her?

But even as he sits admiring her, he can’t ignore the ache in his chest. He can’t keep doing this. Peko is one of the most important people in his life and he’d sooner stab himself in the stomach than ruin what they have. As patient and understanding as she is, she’s still human, and if he thinks for a second that professing his love for her wouldn’t change anything between them, he’s dead wrong.

So he’ll keep these feelings under lock and key where they’ll never bother her or make her uncomfortable. He can be perfectly content with what they have now. No messy sentiments. No complications. Just them. And as long as he has her by his side— Well, that’s all he really needs.


	3. Death/Life

As you gently cradle the young master close to you, one thought alone floats in your head. _He’s going to live._ You out of anyone know what a fatal wound looks like, and though he may certainly never see out of that eye again, it is not going to be enough to kill him.

The whirr of cogs and machinery rings in your ears. You don’t need to look up to know what surrounds you. Hundreds of sword-wielding robots that want you dead and don’t care who gets in the way to do so. Briefly, you wonder how the young master could have ever thrown himself into danger for your sake. (You don’t deserve it. You have never deserved it. But you have misunderstood him before, the boy you’ve known since you were a child, and discovering how _wrong_ you got it will be your biggest regret.)

The first stab pierces through your abdomen, and just from that single wound you know you won’t be living through this, but that doesn’t matter at the moment. You hunch forward, hands going to either side of the young master’s body, palms flat on the ground, bracing yourself for the incoming onslaught. The next stab pierces your side, and another goes through your arm. On and on and on. You would be lying if you said it didn’t hurt, but pain is something you can handle. Pain is something you’ve endured for years.

You nearly scream when you see one blade pass through you to hit the young master shallowly, but you position your body more firmly over his, even as you start to taste the metallic tang of blood, even as your strength begins to wane, because at the very least you can take the brunt of the damage. _Hurt me all you want, just don’t take him._  Your arms and legs shake from the effort. Stab after stab, wound after wound, you try to hang onto that spindly thread of life long enough to keep him from harm. You can do this for him. You _want_ to do this for him.

The world is growing darker, blurring around the edges. Before you can fade away completely, you chance a look at the young master. He’s staring up at you in horror through his one good eye, covered in blood (you sincerely hope that’s _your_ blood and not his), and you wish you could at least save him from the sight of your pitiful form. His name tumbles from your lips in a hoarse whisper. As the world grows darker, you manage what might be the ghost of a smile. Fleetingly, you feel the desire to stay with him just a little bit longer, an urge that fills you with even just a sliver of hope, but you dash it aside for something far more meaningful.

_As long as the young master is safe,_ you think to yourself. _As long as he is safe, it is enough. As long as he lives, it is enou_


	4. The Ghost in the Machine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon requested a swap fic with Peko as the "traitor" instead of Chiaki.
> 
> Original post is [here](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/post/154599074288/swap-fic-w-peko-as-the-traitor-like-chiaki).

“Pekoyama… It’s… It’s really you, isn’t it? You’re the traitor…?” Hajime’s expression looks entirely at odds with his words. He clenches his teeth and grips the edge of the banister with shaking hands.

“All evidence points to me, doesn’t it?” Peko answers, making sure to keep her chin up and her shoulders square. “Then the logical explanation would be that I am the traitor.”

“No!” Fuyuhiko slams his fists against the banister. _“No!_ I _don’t_ accept this! You’re just making shit up! Komaeda committed suicide! He killed himself! That… That _has_ to be it! I’m telling you, you fucking idiots!! Why won’t you listen to me?!”

“Enough,” Peko says.

Fuyuhiko’s breath hitches. “H-Huh…?”

“That’s enough. Please look at this logically.” Peko sucks in a slow breath with a practiced precision that only comes from years of careful repression. “This is not a matter of what is good or bad, or right or wrong. It is one life in exchange for the many. You should all understand this is the only way. You have all the evidence you need to come to the correct conclusion.” As she looks around the circle, she sees matching looks of distress on all five of her classmates’ faces. She attempts a smile. “It’s going to be okay. Please. Do what you must.”

They cast their votes and the slot machine rolls.

“Ding ding ding! Co-ooooorrect! The killer of Nagito Komaeda is none other than our very own Peko Pekoyama!” Monokuma sings, giggling behind cartoonish hands. “Just so you know, it wasn’t a unanimous vote! We had one Special Stanley who decided to go against the grain!”

“No,” Fuyuhiko chokes, hands still gripping the banister so hard his knuckles turn white.

“Kuzuryuu… I still don’t understand… What is Pekoyama to you?” Hajime asks.

The confession spills from Fuyuhiko’s lips in one long breath, how they had spent almost everyday of their lives together, growing up, growing apart, falling into their respective roles. Throughout the entire story, Peko remains silent.

There is nothing to say.

This is where her journey ends, with a simple sacrifice of a girl who was never really meant to live for very long in the first place. As she looks upon the faces of her grieving classmates for what will probably be the last time, she finds that her only regret is that she could not stay with them longer. But this is her duty, her purpose, and she will pay it in full.

“I was very pleased to have met you all. Thank you for everything you’ve done. If I may be so selfish, I only ask that you do not let it end here. Please, don’t stop fighting for what is right. There is still much left to be done, and it would be a shame if you were to let all your hard work go to waste.” And yes, they will learn the truth as well, but that is a path they will travel on their own.

She starts to walk off to her imminent death, but she feels a gentle tug that keeps her from progressing any farther.

“Wait.”

Peko looks over her shoulder. Fuyuhiko has caught the elbow of her sleeve, head bowed, hands shaking.

“Don’t… Don’t go,” he hiccups. “P… Please… _Don’t leave me here all alone.”_

 _Oh._ Before she realizes what she’s doing, she’s gathering the boy up in her arms, holding him close and petting his hair. For a person who’s spent so long building walls and fortresses around himself, Fuyuhiko falls against her effortlessly, hands fisting into the back of her uniform. “Don’t go,” he keeps whispering into her collarbone. “Don’t go. Don’t leave me. Please. _Please.”_

She doesn’t have the heart to tell him that the girl he grew up with is already long gone, replaced by nothing more than an artificial intelligence wired into a digital environment (and that, too, is a truth that he will find out on his own), so she finds words she thinks will appease him. “You are strong, with or without me. You are going to make it out of here and see the sunlight again. Believe in yourself the way I believe in you.”

Somewhere within this simulated consciousness, Peko catches visions of sunflower fields and snow rabbits. These must be memory artifacts of the girl whose face she now holds. Fireflies. Grassy meadows. Climbing trees. Though they are fragmented, they are very good memories, and she knows she’s made the right decision. This is a desire that transcends her programming. She wants to protect them (and _him)_ not just because she was made this way, but simply because she wants to.

It’s funny. Her whole life she considered herself nothing more than a part of a machine, and now that she actually _is_ , she feels emotion more freely than she ever did when she was alive. _(Really_ alive, not this complex string of code and numbers.)

As she walks towards her impending end with Monomi’s soft little paw tucked into her palm, she gives her classmates one last smile and wave.

“Good-bye, everyone. And thank you. You’ve all taught me so much.”

 

 

 

_Enter the name of the file you wish to delete_

_/NeoWorldProgram/PEKO.exe_

_Execution time: 9.829 s_

_Press any key to cancel_


	5. Reckless Hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon requested "I got in a fight and you took me to the ER but you should see the other guy" AU.
> 
> Original post is [here](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/post/154613153243/i-got-in-a-fight-and-you-took-me-to-the-er-but).

“Ow! Goddammit! Can’t you drive a little slower, Peko?”

Peko says nothing, doing very little to adjust her speed as she zips through the highway on the way to the hospital. She’s been eerily silent ever since picking him up from the bar where he’s almost certainly no longer welcome. He doesn’t know if she’s worried or angry—possibly both—but he can sort of understand if she is. He’s sporting a busted lip and a fat eye, and at least half a dozen cuts and bruises all over his body. She had given him her scarf to stem the bleeding while she drove like a bat out of hell, but even the slightest jostle irritates his injuries.

Pressing the scarf more firmly against his lip, he glances over at Peko through his unswollen eye. She has her eyes glued to the road, fingers tightly gripping the steering wheel with a strange tension she doesn’t normally allow herself.

“Are you mad at me?” he asks.

She’s quiet for a beat before she answers. “Yes.”

“What the hell! Why?”

Peko takes her eyes off the road long enough to throw him a glare which is only intensified by the striking red of her irises. “Because you were reckless.”

“I was not! I knew what I was doing.”

“Must you always pick a fight when you get angry?”

“It’s not my fucking fault! They were the ones asking for it.”

“And all the same, you end up like _that.”_

Fuyuhiko winces and finds little room to respond to that. Shit, Peko’s fucking scary when she’s mad. Yeah, he’s a mess, but she doesn’t have to go at him so _hard._ Suddenly feeling very put out, Fuyuhiko folds his arms and slumps in his seat.

A half-minute later, he grumbles, “Yeah, well. You should see the other guy.”

 _That_ makes the corners of Peko’s mouth quirk up almost certainly without her permission. She tries valiantly to hide it, covering her mouth with her hand, but he notices all the same and smirks. “I saw that.”

For that remark, she hits a speed bump in the parking lot a little faster than advised.

“Ow! _Goddammit, Peko!!”_


	6. Black Butterfly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon requested an AU where Komaeda's plan succeeds in Chapter 1 and Peko is the first victim.
> 
> Original post is [here](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/post/154815657103/komaedas-assassination-plan-chapter-1-works).

“Hold on. Pekoyama. I’m going to need to take that from you,” Byakuya says, pointing to the emerald-green sword bag still strapped over her shoulder.

Peko furrows her brow. “It is only a practice sword. I have no intention of using it.”

“Nevertheless, we can’t be too careful.” He nods once more to the Duralumin case. “You will get it back after the party but I cannot accept it inside.”

“… I understand,” she says and relinquishes her sword bag.

 

* * *

 

“We can’t leave the Duralumin case in the storage room. That’s not nearly safe enough.”

“Then perhaps someone should guard it. That would make it safe, would it not?”

“Just leave it to me!” Nekomaru shouts, pumping his fists. “I’ll watch it in the office. No one will get by me, that’s for sure!”

 

* * *

 

Peko is standing off to the side enjoying a very nice plate of _coq au vin_ when the lights suddenly shut off.

In the windowless room, the party is bathed in complete darkness. Her classmates release an uproar of fright and confusion, but Peko does not cower. She knows the darkness; she embraces it like a long-lost friend.

_Something is wrong. But what is it?_

As she filters through every breath, every shuffle, every movement, she scans the pitch black room and focuses… focuses…

_There!_

“Stop, fiend!” she shouts, reaching for her shinai but grabbing at air. Right, she had it confiscated at the door. Why couldn’t she have kept her weapon? Well, there’s no time to dwell on it. Quickly, Peko rushes towards the assailant just as he brandishes a knife. It’s _glowing._ What…?

She dodges his first stab easily, pivoting on her heel and grabbing him around the wrist. In one fluid motion she twists his arm behind his back. The attacker makes a pained sound and drops the knife. She dives for it, but the mystery man does as well. They grapple for it, rolling around the floor for control, but she is the stronger one, and she can win—

Peko feels a sudden crippling pain in the pit of her stomach. It’s _unbearable._ She grunts, curling in on herself. Not now, out of all times, _not now._ The assailant retakes control of the knife and forces her down with a powerful hand. She sees the blade above her, still glowing.

(Surely, her assailant must have the devil’s luck on his side.)

He stabs down once and the knife punctures clean through her stomach. Automatically she claps a hand over the wound in a futile attempt to stem the flow of blood. She knows best out of anyone where to go in for a kill, and she’s not living through this. Warm blood gushes down her belly, seeping between her fingers. She sucks in shallow breaths, feeling her grasp on life slowly fading away.

_I have failed._

Just before Peko succumbs to the darkness one final time, she is comforted—even just a little bit—that the young master is still safe in his cabin.

 

* * *

 

Fuyuhiko trudges across the courtyard on his way to the old lodge. Monokuma was extra pushy (and extra annoying) about him going to see the body for himself. _The very first murder._ He too heard the body discovery announcement, and though he couldn’t give a damn whichever one of those morons ended up kicking the bucket, in the pit of his heart he feels a smug sort of satisfaction. He knew they wouldn’t last forever. For all their talk of friendship and unity and whatever shitty Care Bear lesson they’ve been spouting, in the end, people always choose to save their own skin.

That’s what people _do._

He strides into the lodge with a smirk on his lips. “So it finally happened. You guys talk big, but in the end, you’re no better than me. So who was it, huh? Which one of you assholes couldn’t handle the—”

The smirk falls off his face.

Blood. So much blood. Staining the front of her uniform, her hands, her hair.

What—

_Not her._

_Anybody but her._

This isn’t real. It can’t be her. She would never die so easily. Not without a fight and she’s the best at fighting. It can’t be.

_But it is._

“Which one—” His voice breaks; he swallows, has to find it again. _“—_ _Which one of you fuckers did it_ _.”_

“Kuzuryuu?”

“WHICH ONE OF YOU DID IT GODDAMMIT. ANSWER ME!! I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL WHOEVER DID THIS TO HER. I’M GONNA TEAR THEM APART LIMB FROM LIMB. _WHO THE FUCK DID IT, COME OUT AND FACE ME. GOD FUCKING DAMMIT—”_

Blindly, he rushes towards her body, his vision suddenly swimming (—he has to get to her he has to has to do s o m e t h i n g WHY wasn’t he THERE for her WHY did he leave her ALONE WHY why _whywhy—),_ but he is stopped by at least three sets of hand.

“Hey! You can’t touch the crime scene!”

“FUCK YOU GET OFF ME YOU ASSHOLES YOU FUCKERS YOU HAVE NO RIGHT—”

When more people try to pull him away, he kicks and screams and when they try to cover his mouth, he bites at their hands, so Nekomaru has to lift him bodily and drag him from the room.

The rest of the night is filled with nothing but Fuyuhiko screaming Peko’s name.


	7. A good day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon requested Kuzupeko with a happy ending.
> 
> Original post is [here](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/post/154908992153/some-kuzupeko-with-a-happy-ending-please).

Fuyuhiko wakes to a stripe of sunlight shining across his eyes and Peko’s hair tickling his nose. He has his chest pressed against her naked back and one arm thrown loosely over her waist. He glances over at the clock. 7:02. A smile tugs on his lips as he shifts more comfortably into the sheets. It’s rare when neither he nor Peko are woken up in the middle of the night by nightmares. He lets that sense of ease settle into his bones as he yawns and presses his cheek against the top of Peko’s spine.

She’s awake. He doesn’t have to see her face to know, but she seems just as content as he to lie in bed bathed beneath the morning light.

“Morning,” he murmurs against her shoulder blade, feeling blindly for her hand and lacing their fingers together when he finds it.

“Good morning,” she answers, sounding clear and focused. So she had a good rest too. Good.

Reluctantly, he pulls away from her and sits up, rubbing at his one good eye with the back of his hand. She rolls to her other side, looking sleep-rumpled and positively adorable. Idly he traces the tip of his fingers against her waist, knowing just the spots where she’s ticklish. “How about we spend the day together? Just you and me, whaddya say?”

She giggles beneath her breath, shimmying away from his wandering hand. “I would like that, Fuyuhiko, yes.”

They get up and shower and get dressed for the day. Peko brushes out her hair, tying up two bunches with plain black ribbons and letting the rest fall loose over her shoulders. She doesn’t often braid her hair anymore (something she’d done to be battle-ready without needing to cut her hair, which she always preferred to keep long). After Fuyuhiko buttons up his shirt, he holds up two different ties and asks her which one she thinks he should wear today. She looks between both of them carefully before pointing to the dove gray one. (Good choice.)

They share a simple breakfast of rice, salmon, and soup at the hotel restaurant. Despite his sweet tooth, they still prefer a traditional breakfast over toast or hot cakes. A few of their friends come and greet him and Peko, but for the most part they leave the two of them alone; they can probably tell it’s _their_ day today.

They walk around the island, where Peko briefly complains about the sun being too glaring at this time of day (and so Fuyuhiko resolves to get her a sun hat or something to help) and then after lunch, he drops her off at therapy with a wave and a kiss. His session isn’t until Thursday, but he’ll pick her up once hers is finished and they can have dinner together.

He reads a bit from one of Peko’s books to pass the time, but once the hour rolls around, he’s there to pick her up on the dot. Owari is waiting outside the door for her own session, bouncing impatiently in her seat. They make small talk before Peko steps out looking no more troubled than she did earlier in the day, which is always a good sign. He says good-bye to Owari and takes Peko’s hand.

“Good talk?”

“Making progress.”

“Couldn’t ask for more.”

After a nice dinner that Peko cooks herself (and he helps of course), Fuyuhiko takes her to the opposite end of the island where they can be alone. The wind is starting to pick up so Peko draws a little closer to share in his warmth.

“A _yuinou_ would’ve been nice.”

“It would’ve.”

They find a spot in the grass where they can watch the water. She draws in close and rests her head on his shoulder. It’s probably not all that comfortable for her, so he shifts their positions until he has his cheek pressed against the hollow of her neck and her head rests against the top of his.

(The beach is nice, but they miss the trees and streets and mountains back home. Even with so much of the clan gone, they are yakuza born and bred, and starting the line anew is something they both want. Helping with the relief efforts in Kobe will be the first thing they do when they are ready to fit back into the society they helped destroy.)

For a long while, they sit in comfortable silence, matching the pace of their breathing.

“Should I get down on one knee?” he asks.

“No thank you,” she says.

He holds out his hand for her. She tucks her fingers gently against his palm.

Carefully, he digs out the simple gold band from his pocket. He holds it up between forefinger and thumb, and for just a second, he hesitates. It’s a familiar fear, one he feels more powerfully than ever because after all these years she can actually tell him “no,” and this time is no exception.

“Are you really sure? With me?” he asks, timid despite the clarity of his own feelings.

“Yes,” she says clearly, surely.

He slides the ring onto her finger.

He’s relieved to see it fits her just fine, and as he looks up and gazes upon the face he falls in love with more and more each day, he can see the same question lingering behind her eyes.

_Do we deserve this?_

It’s hard to tell. Maybe they’ll never know the answer, but as Peko laces their fingers together and he can feel the cold press of the ring against his hand, Fuyuhiko can safely say without a shadow of a doubt that he is happy.


	8. Irezumi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon requested a drabble with the prompt: "you can’t get tattooed drunk, come back in the morning and if you still want my name on your ass we’ll talk.”
> 
> I like to think this takes place in the same universe as Well (Chapter 2).
> 
> Original post is [here](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/post/154995547318/you-cant-get-tattooed-drunk-come-back-in-the).

Sometimes Peko doesn’t quite anticipate the benefits of being best friends with a sixth generation yakuza heir.

It’s not something that’s on her mind when she gets the call from Fuyuhiko asking her to pick him up from a bar on the other side of the city. When he climbs into the car, he’s red-faced and reeking of sake. (Something he abhorred in their younger years but now in their mid-twenties, he does it every once in a while as a way of socializing with his fellow yakuza associates. It still doesn’t help how much of a lightweight he is.)

When they make it back to his house, she helps support his weight while he stumbles his way to his room. He’s making some sort of fuss about tattoos and names in a jumbled up garble that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. (It might have something to do with his _irezumi._ He’s been going weekly to his tattoo sessions for months and it’s no where near completion.)

She slides open the door to his room and helps him over to his futon. He mumbles something else incoherent and then looks at her expectantly, like he just may have asked her a question. She gives him a small smile and says, “I think you should get to bed. Sleep all this off.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Fuyuhiko growls.

“Of course,” Peko answers. Despite his protests, he falls onto the futon easily, still clad in slacks and a dress shirt. She throws the comforter over him as he murmurs drunken things into his pillow. “Whatever’s on your mind, we can talk about it in the morning.”

In his state of inebriation, she’s not expecting him to remember, but he comes to her house the next morning and tells her that he wants to add her name to his _irezumi_ _._

“My… name?”

“Yeah,” he says, avoiding eye contact. “I mean, if you’re okay with it… Look, it’s not that big of a deal. Just forget about it. I don’t care.”

She knows he’s only trying to downplay what he wants so as not to sound too soft, but even so, she hesitates. She’s never been a fan of her own name, a wasted thing composed of insignificant sounds. But if there’s one person who can breathe life into it, it’s Fuyuhiko, because he’s the only person who’s ever spoken her name like it holds meaning.

So she nods and says it’s fine.

The thing is, the tattoo artist has already completed the outlines and is a bit of the way through with the coloring, so when Fuyuhiko brings up the idea to him, he’s livid. But this is where being a headstrong yakuza comes in handy because Fuyuhiko yells back just as hot.

“I’ll pay whatever the hell you want, but fuck it all, _I want her name in there.”_

After even more yelling and cursing (that Peko is entirely used to after being around the Kuzuryuus for most of her life), the tattoo artist finally relents and says there’s _one_ spot where he can put the characters of Peko’s name without entirely ruining the composition.

Which happens to be right over his buttocks.

Peko blushes up to her roots, fully expecting Fuyuhiko to rescind the idea right away, but when she looks at him, he’s also a bit pink in the cheeks, but he doesn’t look deterred.

“I mean, I don’t mind,” Fuyuhiko murmurs, arms crossed. “If you’re still okay with it, Peko.”

And when she thinks about it, she finds she doesn’t mind so much either.

So Fuyuhiko gets his tattoo and, even if a bit unexpectedly, Peko gets to be a part of it.


	9. The fading of the light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon requested a drabble with the prompt: "Of all the ways for peko to go, having it be disease feels awfully unfair."
> 
> (Listen, I don't make the prompts I just write them, okay.)
> 
> Original post is [here](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/post/155551885743/if-youre-still-cool-with-horrible-bloodthirsty).

The thing is he _probably_ should have expected something like this. They made the world this way. They were the ones who stripped the land of its beauty, blocked up the sky and polluted the air. They’ve been living that shit, breathing that shit for years while they carved their way through Japan. So one day when Peko coughs up blood into her palm and collapses in the middle of her morning walk, it _shouldn’t_ come as a surprise.

But it still feels incredibly, unbelievably, _horribly_ unfair.

He goes to Tsumiki first pleading for her help, which he doesn’t need to do because she already wants to. She rifles through her medicine cabinets and medical books, but she can’t find anything to help with whatever’s affecting Peko, and any knowledge of it may already be long gone from this world.

Then he goes to Hinata on his hands and knees begging his friend to save her. He has all the talent in the world pumped into his body, surely something in that lobotomized brain of his could help. And he knows it’s selfish of him to ask Hinata (who’s vowed to live his life as Hajime Hinata and not that soulless monster) to compromise who he is for this, _he knows,_ but he _needs_ her, and he’s convinced himself he’d do _anything_ for her.

When he sees the conflicted and altogether _terrified_ look on Hinata’s face, Fuyuhiko apologizes for overstepping boundaries and goes back home, and their fates are sealed.

Peko is completely bedridden, unable to go anywhere without exhausting herself. At first it’s not so bad. She’s just tired more often, and maybe a bit woozy, but each day gets worse and worse. She grows paler and weaker, wasting away before his eyes. He’s there at her side with a damp cloth to wipe her brow during the really bad episodes. He wants to smile more around her, wants to make the most of these last moments together because the least he can do is give her the better version of himself—the one who’s learned to laugh and love more honestly—but it’s hard not to crumple into tears when she looks so pale and weak.

On good days they talk about time spent running in grassy fields and snowy hills. They talk of a future returning home and pulling the remains of the clan from the ashes and building anew, like they always wanted. Peko never tries to add herself to the equation when they speak of the future; she thinks he doesn’t notice, and if his single good eye is a bit misty, it’s not her fault.

It’s at night when she’s trembling and delirious with fever that are the hardest to handle. She alternates between thrashing about on the bed and screaming things he can’t entirely make out. Sometimes she screams for him, sometimes she screams for people he doesn’t know, and sometimes she just screams in general, but most noticeably she screams for Bennosuke Miyazaki. Her teacher, and possibly the closest thing she ever had to a parent.

“Tomoe,” she sobs, damp strands of hair sticking to her lips. “This is for Tomoe. This is for what I did to her. This is her curse.” When he asks who Tomoe is, she tearfully responds that she doesn’t know. Then she screams “I’m sorry I’m so sorry” over and over for the rest of the night until she passes out from exhaustion.

When she’s more lucid in the morning, she tells him that she deserves this for all the terrible things she’s done, and that makes him bury his face into the crook of her neck, stroking her hair and chanting over and over that could _never_ be true.

(Strike him down too. Please. Give him whatever’s afflicting her so they may be one in the same. They were meant to be equals, and never before has he wished they could be on even ground more than now.)

On the last day she lies in their bed with the evening light shining upon her pale face. Her breathing is shallow, weak, and he knows it’s going to be soon. He has her hand grasped tightly between his own and his heart constricts so painfully he feels like it might burst. Weakly she beckons him closer and he leans in, sharing in the intimacy he may never feel again.

She kisses him sweetly, as tender as she’s always given, and in that moment he can’t help himself. He kisses her again and again and again, like a man drowning in the ocean clinging to his last ounce of air.

“Will you remember me?” she breathes against his lips when he finally draws away.

“Yes. Always,” he answers shakily, and he can taste the saltiness of his tears rolling down his cheeks.

He thinks she tries to smile, a final kindness between the last few breaths she heaves—and then Peko Pekoyama is gone for good, and with her, the light, and a part of himself.


	10. Articulate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has raised the rating on this collection, so be warned.
> 
> Rated for mild sexual content, but nothing really explicit. Continue reading at your own discretion.
> 
> Original post is [here](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/post/158687050713/articulate).

“Are you okay?”

He has to ask. Even in this moment, when they’re at their most intimate. If he doesn’t ask now, he knows he’ll regret it.

Peko flutters her eyes open and looks at him in confusion. She has her bottom lip between her teeth, biting down so hard it must hurt.

His hands, which had been massaging her breasts up until this point, fall back to his sides. Gently, he coaxes out her bottom lip with his thumb; it’s red and swollen, but luckily she hasn’t drawn blood.

“Do you wanna stop?”

“ _No,”_ she blurts out, and it’s said so spontaneously he has to believe her.

“Then what’s wrong?” he asks again, furrowing his brows in concern. Peko flushes and goes silent, suddenly avoiding eye contact with him. He maneuvers himself around until he’s sitting on the edge of the bed beside her. “Can you tell me? Please.” Peko stays silent, head bowed. She wants to tell him; he can tell by the way her lip trembles, but she’s having trouble finding the words. “… Are you embarrassed or something?”

Her blush darkens. She stares down at her knees, rubbing the pad of her thumb against her first knuckle. He tries to stay patient while she works out the words in her head. If she’s still struggling, if she decides she doesn’t want to do this anymore, then they’ll put their clothes back on and call it a night. He doesn’t care about the sex. He just wants her to be okay.

Finally, Peko shyly peeks up at him from beneath long lashes. “It feels good. I… I enjoy when we do this together. I enjoy feeling so close to you,” she says. (Inwardly, he feels a wave of relief. She wants this. She wants this.) “But I must control myself. To keep myself from… verbalizing it, to such an extent. It’s… indecent, isn’t it?”

Oh. _Oh._ Fuyuhiko feels his face heating up. He wouldn’t have taken Peko for the sort to be particularly… _noisy_ in the bedroom, but she’s constantly surprising him, and he thinks he understands now. They grew up in a traditional household. His mother had been a stickler for propriety, and even he still half-believes this is something only married couples should do. But he has no intention of ever courting anyone else, and he’s convinced enough that this is what Peko wants, so screw propriety and whatever else his mother has said.

“It’s not indecent. It’s just us two here. You don’t have to feel like you gotta hold anything back. If you feel good, then you feel good. No one gets to take that away from you. A-And besides…” (The blush creeps down his neck.) “I th-think it could be… I dunno… k-kinda hot...”

Peko’s head snaps up. She stares at him with wide eyes. “… Do you really think so?”

“Well, yeah.” Now it’s his turn to avoid eye contact. “I mean, fuck, I really like it when I can tell you’re enjoying yourself. It makes me happy. But if you’re uncomfortable— I-If you really don’t want to, then—”

She silences him with a kiss. It takes him by surprise, the way she suddenly throws her arms around him and straddles his waist, but he’s certainly not complaining. One hand latches onto her hip and the other winds into her silky strands of hair. His tongue meets hers as she eagerly deepens the kiss and it leaves him breathless. He pecks her open mouth a few more times, gently soothing her still-swollen lip with light kisses, before pulling away enough to meet her eyes.

“Do you wanna try again?” he asks, a bit dazed.

She moans against his lips in response.


	11. Assurance

“Do you want to be with me?”

Peko looks up from her book. Fuyuhiko sits leaning back against the couch, hands folded over his stomach. His shoulders are tense and his mouth is drawn tight. Worry clouds his one good eye. Sometimes he’ll look away when he’s asking about a pressing matter because he’ll fret over appearing too weak, but when he’s vulnerable like this he’ll look her straight in the eye.

She sets her book aside. It’s not the first time he’s asked her this. It’s not even the second, or third, or fifth. Now and then he’ll ask, like he thinks there’s still some part of her that’s only staying with him because she must. She can wear his wedding ring and bear his children and still he’ll ask. She doesn’t think he’ll ever stop asking.

It’s not unlike those moments when things are hectic and she’s trapped inside her own head, wondering whether or not she deserves to be by his side. They deal with it the best they can. And, truthfully, sometimes it’s not very well, but the world keeps spinning and they’d rather move forward together than to stay stagnant with doubt. Maybe they’ll never be all-the-way-normal, but at least she can say it’s there instead of pretending there’s nothing to overcome. (The answer is: it doesn’t matter if she deserves it or not. She wants to be by his side and that’s just that.)

He believes her more and more each passing day without her needing to say it though. He sees it in the way she smiles at him when she catches him watching her while she reads, the way she pushes the plate of green bean salad closer to his side of the table because she knows how much he likes it, the way she assures him she’ll be careful before she boards a plane to Nagoya to meet with some regional clan members, the way she lovingly presses her cheek against his shoulder as they settle down for bed.

But sometimes he still needs the extra reassurance, no matter how ridiculous it may seem, so she cradles his face between her hands and gives him the words he needs.

“Yes. Of course I do,” she says, kissing him sweetly until the doubt fades from his face and he kisses her back.


	12. Pitch on the Stairs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Part 1 of an epilogue to my other fic, [Glass Slipper](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10678059). It's strongly recommended that you read that first before you read this chapter.
> 
> Original post is [here](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/post/159884744623/pitch-on-the-stairs).

“And just what were you trying to accomplish?!”

Their father screams loud enough to wake the whole goddamn country. It’s a small comfort that they live on top of a hill. After all these years, they would have received thousands of noise complaints by now, but the city police would never do shit against them, not with what they pay, and it’s not like he cares what other people think right now.

“Your father’s right. Did you think this was amusing? Is this a game to you, Fuyuhiko?”

A full day has passed since his family has learned of his little stunt. Their mother has since returned from Yokohama after two weeks of sorting out dissent from that side of the family; she’s testy and irritable, but she gets her way. All four of them are sitting around the low-table in the family room. Both envelopes—his and Peko’s—have been laid out in the center of the table. Peko has been ordered to wait outside like a dog. She takes it without complaint. That’s fine. Fuyuhiko has enough anger for both of them in that room. It’s not like he’s never been on the receiving end of a four-way screaming match before.

Then again, he doesn’t make a habit of throwing his sister under the bus.

“You would fucking tell them to choose a _servant_ over me?!” Natsumi growls, hands balled into fists on the tabletop. “That was _my_ place! _My_ spot at Hope’s Peak!”

“I didn’t _tell them_ anything! Kizakura made the decision, not me!”

“Yeah right! I saw how you were acting that day. All fucking shifty eyes and stupid questions. I should’ve known you were up to something.”

Their father’s anger has changed; he has two types of anger. The first is loud, of course, a lion’s roar within a man’s body; it preludes too much toppled furniture and too many spent cigarettes. The second is the kind that simmers, boiling beneath the surface because he has his ways and he knows how to use them. Fuyuhiko thinks he might prefer the former. Right now, he’s using the latter. “As heir to this clan, I would’ve expected better from you. We pride ourselves in honor and loyalty, and you would betray one of our own for someone so expendable?”

“Natsumi’s still in middle school! It doesn’t make sense for her to be attending high school already!”

“What the hell do you care what I do with my life?! What happened to ‘I’m not my sister’s keeper,’ huh? You’re full of so much _BULLSHIT!_ _”_

“Fuyuhiko, I don’t care what your reasons are, but having a tool represent the family at such a prestigious school like Hope’s Peak Academy is the most reprehensible act you could’ve possibly done.”

“Cry me a goddamn river, old man. All these years and still with that backwards-ass thinking? Like it or not, Kizakura chose _her._ You said it yourself, Hope’s Peak is one of the most powerful institutions in the country. Don’t you think it’s gonna look a lot more shameful for the family if we reject their invitation?”

Despite the tension still coiling in his shoulders, his father smoothly rises to his feet and makes for the door. “This is ridiculous. I’m bringing the tool in here. We’ll sort this out once and for—”

Fuyuhiko jumps to his feet too. “Don’t you dare!” he roars. “Don’t you fucking dare! This is about what _I_ did. Don’t you drag Peko into this!”

“Kenichi, Fuyuhiko, sit back down, _now,”_ the old lady cuts in, taking a sip of her green tea. (His mother has two types of anger too—cold and ruthless—and both can get you a knife between the ribs. He supposes his folks are perfect for each other, in that way.) Only when his father returns to the table does Fuyuhiko fall back on his heels. “Son, if you were so worried, we could have arranged it so your tool would accompany you to school. You didn’t have to go so far as to have her scouted for enrollment.”

“That’s not _it,”_ he hisses. “You guys don’t get it.”

“ _Then explain it to us,”_ the old man says.

Beneath the table, Fuyuhiko clenches his fists. It won’t work. His folks won’t get it, no matter what he does (how many times has he tried to explain it in the past?), so he tries to appeal to the only person who might understand.

Unfortunately she has most reason to be angry.

“Natsumi, listen. It’s not like I don’t think you’re talented or nothing. It’s just that… you’re my little sister, okay? We’re a year apart! I just don’t think you’re _ready_ for high school. There’s a time and a place for everything, and Peko’s good at what she does.”

“What, taking orders? Groveling at our feet? That’s rich. Guess she can be the Ultimate Doormat. I’m sure Hope’s Peak is gonna _love_ having a student like that on their roster.”

“ _Would you shut up?!”_ Fuyuhiko spits. “You have all the time in the goddamn world to do whatever the hell you wanna do. Fuck, you’ve pretty much got it made for the rest of your life. Why does it have to be now? Why can’t you just wait another year? Rushing through this isn’t gonna help anybody, least of all yourself.”

“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” Natsumi looks like she wants to laugh, but she doesn’t. “Quit acting like you care _soooo_ much about me. It pisses me off. We all know what this is about, why you’re trying so hard to cut me out of the picture, so why don’t you just say it? _Huh?”_ she taunts, grinning cruelly, and that’s low, even for Natsumi.

“ _Fine._ You want me to _say_ it?” He switches gears. Somewhere in the back of his brain, he hears a small voice shouting that this is wrong, he needs to turn back, but he pushes through; there’s no way he’s gonna let Natsumi expose him like this. “I think you’re being a _selfish_ _bitch_ for trying to force your way into this when it’s already pretty damn clear you have _no_ place. I must be right, if even somebody outside the family can see it. Yeah, okay, you’re talented, but you think that’s all it takes? You think you can get by just because you say so? One day you’re gonna wake up and realize the world doesn’t revolve around you as much as you think it does, and I’m sorry, Natsumi, but you’re just not good enough yet.”

Natsumi slams her hand upon the tabletop. The cups of green tea jump from the force; one cup topples and spills all over the cherry wood.

“You…” she hisses behind gritted teeth. “I’ll fucking kill you.”

(He’s not startled. They’ve grown up in a household where violence equates to love, so it’s hard to expect otherwise. It’s not the first time either of them has threatened to kill the other in the heat of the moment. At least he recognizes it. At least he knows how fucked up it is. But in this world, you either deal with it or you die, and right now he’s gotta live.)

Fuyuhiko flattens his palm on the table opposite Natsumi’s, hunching forward and angling his chin until they’re eye to eye. His fingers barely skim against the puddle of tea. “Just try it,” he counters, matching her venom.

The low light of the room cuts deep shadows across their faces, sharpening their normally youthful features. Natsumi’s eyes are narrowed into slits, mouth pulled back into a scowl. He imagines he looks much the same. They stare each other down for what seems like hours, unmoving, unblinking. It’s a match neither of them is willing to lose.

“You’re both being so dramatic,” the old lady sighs, cutting through the silence. “Honestly. We’re making this far more complicated than it needs to be. Natsumi, there’s no reason to make such a mess. And Fuyuhiko, try to be reasonable. Don’t forget your place in this family. As heir, you have an image to uphold. It may have been acceptable to have your tool attend middle school with you but we simply cannot have that in a place like—”

“No.” Natsumi still doesn’t break eye contact, even when she interrupts their mother. “You know what? Keep your stupid acceptance letters. You think I need _you_ to get into this school?” Her eyes glint with something he doesn’t like. “I don’t need your help. I’ll make them see what a bunch of idiots they were for passing me over. And then they’ll be begging me to join.” She looks over to their parents. “Mom. Dad.”

“Natsumi?” Their father narrows his eyes suspiciously.

“Let Fuyuhiko enroll with his _tool,”_ she sneers, lip curling into a menacing smile. “It doesn’t matter if she goes with him. It won’t cost us anything, and at least we’ll get a good laugh out of it. Let him see for himself how useless it’ll be. Just you watch, _big brother.”_ She pushes herself away from the table and onto her feet. “I’m done here.”

Natsumi leaves without waiting to be dismissed, so Fuyuhiko goes too. He takes both envelopes with him. (The corner of Peko’s letter has soaked up a bit of green tea.)

Peko still waits in the corridor. She stares resolutely towards the opposite wall, hands clasped behind her back like a soldier awaiting command. The paper doors are thin; it’s probably one of the loudest arguments they’ve ever had. There’s no way she could have missed a single word.

He leans forward a bit, trying to catch even a glimpse of a reaction to what she just overheard. Happiness. Anger. Surprise. _Anything._

Nothing changes in her expression.

“Go to bed,” he says.

He hands her the letter.

Peko nods but accompanies him all the way back to his room. He’s too tired to say anything about it, so he lets her. She bids him good night before he retires to his futon.

When he wakes in the morning, he finds her still sitting guard outside his door, one hand at the ready on her sword.


	13. After the Ball

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Part 2 of the epilogue to my other fic, [Glass Slipper](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10678059). It's strongly recommended that you read the original fic and [Part 1 (Chapter 12)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8590423/chapters/23714424) first before you read this chapter.
> 
> Original post is [here](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/post/160421463163/after-the-ball).

Fuyuhiko sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. It’s too early for this. “Peko, what are you doing?”

“Standing guard.”

“All night?”

“Yes.”

_Augh._ “Fucking shit, Peko, did you get _any_ sleep?”

“I rested enough the night before. It was no trouble. I can steel my mind against sleep for up to five days.”

“That’s not the point.” He steps into the hall and closes the door behind him. “What were you standing guard for?”

She doesn’t answer. He already knows anyway. He sighs again and slides down beside her. Peko scoots to the side to give him more space, but he wouldn’t have sat so close if it bothered him.

“Natsumi’s not gonna try and kill me,” he says, pressing his back against the door. “She doesn’t have the guts.”

“Understood. Still. I thought it would be wise not to grow complacent on the off-chance of something happening in the middle of the night.”

“You heard what she said. She’s gonna find her own way. Whatever the hell that is. Point is, that’s not for you to worry about.”

Peko’s eyes go a bit distant. She looks like she has a whole speech laid out there on the tip of her tongue; he can’t blame her. She’s had the whole night to think about it. “Young master,” she begins carefully. “Did I… cause a disturbance in the family?”

“Whaddya mean?”

“My place. This letter.” She touches a delicate hand to the envelope still resting by her knee. (The top corner is slightly wrinkled and stained.) Normally Peko’s resolve is made of steel, but here, in this hall, this moment, she wavers more than he can ever remember. “I had no intention of stirring any conflict, but if my presence is an inconvenience to the family, then I will do everything within my power to right my wrongs. Even if it means paying with my life.”

_This again._ “Cut that out,” he grumbles, curling his lip. He hates when Peko talks like that. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Don’t listen to my family. They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

“But—”

“I said it’s fine, so it’s _fine._ Okay? It’s handled. Even if my folks don’t approve, Natsumi’s made up her mind, and so have I. Nothing anybody can do about it now.”

Peko focuses on the floor. “I see…”

The house is beginning to stir. In the distance, he can hear the servants bustling to get through their morning schedules. Peko and the servants wake much earlier than his family, but they know not to disturb them until they’ve woken on their own, so they won’t be coming to this side of the house until later in the day.

Fuyuhiko stretches his legs out straight and jiggles his right foot lightly. “So.” The word hangs in the air for an uncomfortable second. “We’re going to high school together… I mean. If you want. You don’t have to accept.” He grimaces, realizing he hadn’t even _thought_ to ask Peko about Hope’s Peak in the first place. _You’re as bad as your old man._

“No. I… I will be attending school with you. I had been prepared to follow you when Master Kuzuryuu informed me you would be attending Hope’s Peak Academy for the upcoming school year. But I hadn’t expected to accompany you… as a student.”

_As a student._ It’s a far cry from _as a friend,_ or even _as an equal,_ but it’s infinitely better than _as a tool._

“Well… How do you feel about it?”

“Feel?”

“Y’know. Are you happy? Angry? Scared? … You can tell me.”

“I am honored to be joining you.”

“That’s not a feeling, Peko.” It’s ridiculous his parents had expected him to bring Peko along as if she were a piece of luggage rather than a living, breathing teenage girl—and Peko had been all too happy to oblige.

“I’m…” Her gaze flits to the side. She struggles. She fumbles. He’s not making this easy for her, but he needs to know. “I think I feel…” She trails off. He waits. And when his patience wears thin, he waits some more. Eventually, Peko presses two fingers to her sternum. “… It is like a balloon in my chest. It is very full. It is not heavy. It is like… when I am able to connect a throat strike against a very formidable opponent in kendo. It is that feeling.”

“So you’re… glad?” he guesses. _(Hopes.)_

“… I believe so, yes,” she answers.

He feels the balloon in his chest swell too, pushing away his anxieties. It’s a feeling that gets too big to explain with words, so he doesn’t try.

“We’re gonna have to prepare for the move. We’re gonna be living there, you know that? You’ll get your own dorm room.”

“I see.” Her brows furrow minutely. “I’ve never had my own room before.”

“I know.” He almost laughs, but he keeps himself in check. It’s like having a normal conversation again. Like when they were kids. “But you will at Hope’s Peak. Kizakura said so.” He’ll have to sort some things out with Kizakura before the school year starts. He won’t make the same mistake twice. It won’t be like middle school, where their classmates carefully avoided Peko because they saw her as nothing more than an extension of the Kuzuryuu clan heir. She can make something for herself at Hope’s Peak. Something real. Something all her own. “Things are gonna be different.”

“Different?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it for now.” He can tell she’s still trying to process all the new information. If he explains it to her now, he’s afraid she’ll lose the plot, so for now, he holds his tongue. There will be plenty of time for that later.

They sit in silence with the drone of the house staff working in the distance. They don’t get moments like this very often anymore, existing in comfortable silence. It’s nice. But something still piques his interest.

“Hey, Peko.”

“Yes?”

“Would you have really tried to stop Natsumi? If she tried to kill me, I mean.”

She’s strictly forbidden from raising a hand against anybody in the immediate family, but Peko does not hesitate when she answers. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I am your tool.”

“Quit saying that. _Why?”_ He twists around in his spot and leans into her space, eyes narrowed and focused.

Now she hesitates. Her eyes look to anywhere but his face. He could order her to speak, force it out of her, but that defeats the whole purpose of getting her this far.

So he lets it rest.

He pushes himself to his feet. “It’s almost time for breakfast,” he mutters. He’s not looking forward to the tension that will inevitably consume the dining room, but he doesn’t have a lot of options. “You should get going too.”

Peko nods, picks up her sword and letter, and climbs to her feet. He’d rather she get some sleep, but he knows she won’t agree, not when the old hen Inoue has a full day of work scheduled for her. If she’s too late to breakfast, Inoue won’t feed her, not unless he orders it, so it’s best she get there on time.

“I’ll see you later, okay?” he says as he starts down the hall.

“Young master.”

He stops and looks over his shoulder—and tries to push down the frustration he always feels when she calls him by that infernal title. One thing at a time.

“Yeah?”

“I wanted to thank you,” she says. He swears her face is just a bit pinker than before.

“For what?”

“For… speaking on my behalf last night. I know I do not deserve such attention from you. But I…” The envelope crinkles in her hands as she grips it tighter. “I am glad.”

Peko thanks him a lot. She thanks him all the time, and often for the most nonsensical reasons, but this one is different. It’s almost… heartfelt. Real. Thoughts of guilt and regret fly out of his head, overwritten with the way Peko looks in the diffused morning light, clutching her acceptance letter close to her chest.

He smiles, lopsided and warm. “Yeah,” he says.

Later, his father will remark on how proud he must be feeling to have such a look on his face. Fuyuhiko won’t notice until he brings it up, and at that point, he won’t give a fuck.

It’ll be different this time. He can feel it in his bones.

This is the start of something new.


	14. Come On, Come On

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original post is [here](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/post/160712549585/come-on-come-on).

She comes to him, all ruby red in the silver moonlight. (He used to think that’s where she always belonged, a pale spot in the darkness.) The all-white suit had been her idea, a stark contrast from her dark wardrobe from years ago. _It will make the blood_ _stand out_ _so beautiful_ _ly_ _,_ she’d said. He didn’t disagree.

But she comes to him now, and she’s terrifying and gorgeous.

She steps in close and wraps her arms around his shoulders. He tenses all at once. _What is she doing?_ He’d think it another thinly-veiled attempt on his life if not for the way her hands slide down his back, like a tender caress. She’s soft, _so soft,_ and he’d thought all softness had been chiseled out of her by now. His arms hang uselessly in the air. He doesn’t know what to do.

He wants to kiss her. He wants to kill her.

(He’s battled with this for ages now, it seems. Neither has won out yet.)

Her hair tickles the side of his cheek. The blood on her suit sticks to his from where she’s pressed up against him. She traces a finger down his eyepatch, a solid reminder of the scar she’d given him weeks ago.

He shivers.

“Let’s die in each others’ arms,” she whispers in his ear. “It’ll be _romantic.”_


	15. Two left feet, and no good moves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for [EventualGhost](http://archiveofourown.org/users/EventualGhost/pseuds/EventualGhost)!
> 
> This is meant to take place in the same AU as her [The Insistence of Light](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6833668/chapters/15598444) ‘verse, which is amazing and fantastic and you should absolutely read it right away if you haven’t already.
> 
> Original post is [here](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/post/165884287458/two-left-feet-and-no-good-moves).

“They’re gonna laugh at me.”

“Nobody’s going to laugh at you.”

“Easy for you to say. You’ve been doing this since you were, like, six.”

Fuyuhiko balances his cheek against his fist, one hand gripping the steering wheel. He sighs in a way that makes Peko frown, which is, admittedly, just about the last thing he’d want her to do tonight, of all nights, but it’s not like he can just get rid of the overwhelming dread clouding his brain.

It’s their first, proper date in weeks. They’d been swamped with exams and college applications. Peko had buried herself beneath weeks of note-taking and essay-writing and late-night study sessions just to meet her deadlines. (He’s happy to see her taking charge of her own future, at least, away from the life his parents stole from her.) So he thought he’d surprise her by taking her out for a night on the town. “Anything you want,” he’d said, “just name it.” She didn’t even hesitate. She’d asked to go dancing at a local studio for one of their ballroom dancing nights. He had balked at the idea of floundering in front of a room full of living, breathing human beings, but he’d taken one look at the big-eyed, hopeful expression on her face and there was no way he could say no.

Which is all fine and good, but it doesn’t change the problem in the first place: he’s never danced a day in his life.  _Real_  dancers go to ballrooms like these, dancers who live and breathe this shit and would know at a glance how decidedly  _not good_  he is, especially compared to his classically-trained girlfriend.

It’s not a great way to start a date.

“Give yourself more credit. You’re really good at self-defense,” Peko says, half-turned in her seat.

“Self-defense isn’t  _dancing,_  Peko.”

“It’s not so different. Once you know how to move, you just need to put it to a rhythm.”

He groans. It’s not like he’s  _trying_  to be a downer. He wants her to have a good night. He wants her to do something she actually likes. He wants her to let loose and have fun, and he’s ninety-nine percent sure that’d be far more manageable without him getting in her way. He has half a mind to call up someone, Natsumi, Naegi, Ishimaru,  _anyone_  to take his place so she can dance proper and  _actually_ enjoy herself.

Peko reaches over the console and places her hand over his. “It won’t be bad. I promise,” she says seriously.

He has to keep his eyes on the road, but he catches her expression in his peripheral, soft and endeared. It softens the line of his brow, just a bit. “If you say so,” he mumbles.

Maybe she smiles again, he can’t tell for sure, but she leans back in her seat and folds her hands in her lap. Even though he still feels the uncomfortable weight in the pit of his belly, it’s impossible not to feel some level of hope, because if Peko Pekoyama tells you something like that, you better damn well believe her.

 

* * *

 

They pull up next to the dance studio. It’s a nondescript type of building sandwiched between an old travel agency and an Italian deli. There’s a semi-functioning neon sign hung over the door.

“We’re here,” Peko says, as though it weren’t obvious enough. She unlatches her seat belt and clamors out the door before he even has the chance to shut off the ignition.

She practically leaves him in the dust as she heads towards the studio. She’s got her dance shoes on already. It’s one of the rare times Peko will actually wear heels. Her skirt flutters behind her, soft and flowy.

Damn, he hasn’t seen her  _this_  excited in a long time. The fear comes back anew, seizing up his joints and leaving his throat dry. What kind of asshole does he have to be not to escort her to the door? His mother taught him better than that. Again he feels the urge to hit the first speed-dial on his phone so Natsumi can hurry over and take his place.

It’s too late now. For better or worse, he’s gotta own up to this, whatever  _this_  is.

He takes a deep breath and follows after her.

The heavy metal door creaks when he swings it open. It bangs against the adjoining wall, and the sound echoes around the room like a gunshot in a canyon.

The place is empty.

He knits his brows. “Uh,” he says, looking around. “This the right place?”

Peko smiles enigmatically. “This is the right place.”

“Where is everyone—?”

“It’ll be just us,” she says. When he stares at her, dumbstruck, she clarifies, “I called in a few favors. I thought it might help loosen you up a bit if you didn’t have other people to worry about.”

His breath sticks in his throat, but not in the bad way this time. He is struck by the realization that she would go so far as to do something like this, just for him. Even after all his whining, and complaining, and sighing. She didn’t have to.

But she did.

He laughs, after a moment: a short, breathy sound. “You’re an angel,” he says.

Her shoulders bunch up to her ears when she smiles, bashful, and it’s certifiably the most adorable thing he’s ever seen.

The click of her heels reverberates around the ballroom as she hurries across the dance floor. “We have the place to ourselves for a couple hours. It’s usually better dancing with a live band, but we have full access to the sound system.”

She hooks her phone up to the system. A dulcet, melodious song starts playing over the speakers like something you’d hear in a fancy-ass French café.

He shrugs and reaches out to her. “Well, let’s give it a shot.”

She takes his hands and leads him through the basic steps. She says a waltz should be easy enough for him without being overwhelming. It’s pretty simple, in theory, just a one-two-three step, again and again. She shows him a smaller box step to start, and then demonstrates how to take wider, traveling strides. With the ballroom empty, they can take all the room they need.

He admits, it’s not as bad as he thought it would be. Like this, he doesn’t have to worry about what his hands are doing, held up in just one position, and he only steps on her toes once. (Given the way he reacts, though, he might as well have stepped on her toes a hundred times.) But her eyes are focused and bright, and her skirt flares around her calves like a flower when she spins, and he’s captivated.

“See? It’s just like walking. Only to a beat,” Peko says.

Eventually, when he feels confident enough, he insists on leading. He’s got the basic steps down, and a few of the combinations, it’s just a matter of weaving them all together. They reconfigure, and she offers him her hands without hesitation. (That’s always gonna hit him like a truck—in the good way—how she believes in him so firmly.) He tries to concentrate on his feet and the music and her eyes all at once. She’s patient, filling in the awkward gaps when he misses a step, or gently nudging his elbows up when they droop too low.

He manages to catch her by surprise when he suddenly dips her in his arms. It’s impulsive, a spot of bravery, and he takes some smug satisfaction in the way she stares up at him, wide-eyed and flushed. He smirks down at her, because he can’t help himself, but then she cranes her neck up and kisses him, and when he rights them both up again, he’s grinning like he just won the lottery.

The hour ticks by. They flow seamlessly from one song, to the next, to the next. His feet are starting to ache from all the nonstop dancing, but he doesn’t give a shit, because Peko’s not stopping, so neither will he, and she’s looking at him like he’s personally responsible for every good thing in her life. (That’s how he imagines he’s looking at her, at least.)

They’re so deeply wrapped up in each other that they don’t even notice when the heavy door swings open again. It’s not until someone clears their throat do they bother acknowledging something other than each other.

Peko tears her eyes away from him long enough to look at their newcomer. It’s an older woman he doesn’t recognize, lines around her eyes; Peko seems to recognize her all the same. She steps back, just enough to grant him his space, but keeps their hands linked.

“You two have fun?” the woman asks. The corners of her eyes crinkle when she smiles.

Peko looks down at him for confirmation. He smiles back, in that goofy, lopsided way, and that’s answer enough.

“Yes,” Peko says. “Thank you very much.”

 

* * *

 

The moon is high by the time they leave the studio and climb into the car. Peko watches the building disappear in the side-view mirror as they drive away.

After a few minutes of driving in silence, he says, “We should do this again sometime.”

She’s trying not to get her hopes up, even though it rises on her face like a daisy. Her fingers twist in her lap, like she’s trying to contain her emotions, but he sees the way her cheeks color and her shoulders tense. “I’m not sure if we’d be able to get the ballroom to ourselves again,” she says slowly, carefully.

“That’s okay.” He shrugs with just his right shoulder, and glances over before the traffic light changes. His smile is wide, unrestrained. “We can do it like normal, with everyone else around. Then we could dance to a live band, right?”

He’s thinking he should’ve brought his sunglasses, because in the next moment, she beams so bright it’s like she could illuminate the whole goddamn city.

“Yes,” Peko says, and settles back into her seat in silence, too happy to speak.


	16. The Right Amount

The pregnancy itself is more manageable than the books make it seem.

It’s still early, true, only a few months along, so they have plenty of time to pad. Her belly has swelled enough to be subtle yet unmistakable. She hasn’t yet needed to let out the waists of her clothes, but with how much their child is growing inside her, she thinks the day may be fast approaching.

And Fuyuhiko is being an insufferable worrywart.

For some reason she’s yet to comprehend, he’s treating her like she’s already in her third trimester. It’d be charming, if it weren’t equal parts frustrating. He hurries to lighten her load if he sees her carrying anything heavier than a dish, or leads her by the hand when she’s crossing down the hall. He springs awake as soon as he feels her move from beneath the covers to start her morning routine (even though she  _knows_  it must be exhausting for him to wake up that early), and then insists she stay in bed so that he can take care of the chores in her stead. Once he’d nearly bashed his head against the wall rushing to get to her before she could descend a flight of stairs, “so that he could carry her down himself.”

The whole thing leaves her head spinning with frustration. While it’s true neither of them have ever dealt with a first pregnancy before, she had hoped he would place  _some_  level of trust in her, even with child.

That evening, she tells him she needs to go to the market to buy a sack of rice grain for dinner. The response is immediate. He offers to get it himself, while she stays safe at home, but she demands to come along, if only half-motivated by spite.

It’s raining outside, so they take an umbrella. Fuyuhiko carries it during their walk. He normally insists on holding the umbrella anyway, because he’s a man, and men carry the umbrellas. That’s not the problem. The problem is that he’s straining to keep her covered, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. His arm is trembling from the effort, even though he’s pretending like nothing’s wrong.

(The edge of his shoulder is damp with rainwater from where he’s neglected to keep it covered beneath the umbrella.)

She’s reached the limits of her patience. She sighs, exasperated, and says, “Fuyuhiko.”

His spine snaps straight, like he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Y-Yeah?”

“What is it that I have done to make you believe I have never felt the rain before? I can assure you I was not so sheltered that I cannot handle a drop or two.”

He balks, cheeks coloring red. “I wasn’t thinking that!”

“Then what?”

“Then nothing! I’m just holding the umbrella for us. That’s all!”

She stops walking. He nearly trips over himself stopping fast enough just to keep the umbrella up. It makes the annoyance in her chest burn hotter.  _“Enough_  of that. You’ve been straining yourself unnecessarily this entire time, and for what?”

“I don’t want your feet to get wet!”

“That’s what shoes are for.”

“I-I know that! But it’s cold, and it’s raining hard, and you’ll get rain on your glasses. And your feet will get wet!”

(She will freely admit that the years she spent misunderstanding him will be her biggest regret, but  _this_ is by far the most perplexing thing he’s ever said.)

She says tartly, eyes narrowed, “I’m not made of spun sugar. I won’t melt in the rain. And I won’t slip on rainwater or drown in any puddles or anything else you’re suddenly afraid of.”

For everything they’ve been through, it certainly feels like a reversal of roles, when they were young and mislead and she would’ve done  _anything_  to accommodate him.

She doesn’t want that anymore, for either of them. She wants to be equals.

It seems she strikes a chord, though. His face pinches with shame and distress and anguish. He purses his mouth into a thin line. “I’m an asshole, aren’t I?” he says. He stops her before she can complain. “Sorry. I know. I didn’t mean to make this about something else.”

He looks down at their feet, the umbrella drooping in his grip. “It’s not like I think you’re weak or nothing. Of course not. But it’s…” His bottom lip trembles as he considers his words. “It’s just… I… _What if you catch a cold?”_

She inhales a quick breath, and holds it. For all its normalcy, the weight of his words echoes between them, painful and raw.

“Or what if you catch something worse?” And then it’s like a dam breaks. The words all come out in a rush, like he’s been keeping them in for as long as she’s been wondering about them. “What if it’s something new? What if it ends up being something the doctors can’t fix? What if that happens and nobody wants to help us because… well… we’re  _us?_  And then…”

He doesn’t finish. His gaze flickers to her stomach instead.

The knots in her shoulders loosen. (She thinks of her deceased teacher, and the way his tired old eyes would grow distant whenever he thought of his daughter, taken by disease.)

It’s still a challenge, navigating the fields of their devotion. It still scares her sometimes when she recognizes the lengths she’d go to in order to keep him safe. He’s as unwilling to lose her as she is to him. Perhaps it’d been naïve of her not to consider how much this pregnancy would magnify those feelings.

But she’s not ready to go yet, and even less so with a baby on the way.

She tries to find the words he needs. “Whatever happens will happen,” she says. “No matter how bad it gets, we’ll handle it together.”

There’s still worry clouding his good eye, so she loops her arm through his and pulls him close against her side. “And if my feet get wet and I  _do_  catch a cold, then I’m afraid you’ll have to deal with fetching me soup and books and blankets and anything else I could want until I’m all better.”

That finally makes him smile. One corner of his mouth pulls outward, crooked and charming. He hefts the umbrella higher between them, to better shield them both from the rain. “With how well you handle yourself?” he says. “I’d be lucky just to get you a glass of water.”

 

* * *

 

They come home with the sack of rice hoisted on Fuyuhiko’s shoulder. (Tonight it’s hot pot, to better warm them from the cold.) She sets to work, cleaning the grains and filling the rice cooker so that she can start cutting the mushrooms and cod.

He sits and lets her work. She knows he’s making the effort to sit on his hands. She can feel his eye on her while she flits back and forth through the kitchen.

Her baby bump isn’t so big yet, but it still brushes against the rice cooker when she leans forward to close the lid. She touches a hand to the bump. Her next exhale comes out as a soft, “Oh.”

Fuyuhiko is watching her, curiously, from his place at the table. “You okay?”

She nods, and says, “Yes.”

They eat dinner in peace.

And when it’s time to turn in for bed, they crawl beneath the sheets without another complaint. Fuyuhiko lies there in silence for a moment, and then rolls onto his side, facing her. He hesitates, and curls an arm over the swell of her belly, protectively.

“Is this all right?” he asks.

His skin is warm, even through the thin cotton of her yukata. She slides her arm over his, fingernails lightly grazing the point of his elbow. “Yes,” she says.

Perhaps some level of concern isn’t entirely unwelcome.


	17. Racing Track

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original post is [here](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/post/167322171287/racing-track).

Playtime is a sacred time. They find every opportunity they can to play together, whether they  _should_ be doing something else or not. She’s far from minding. It’s a blissful break away from house chores or Inoue-san’s lessons about cleaning and etiquette.

Today, Fuyuhiko sneaks her out of lessons so they can go play in the grass field at the bottom of the hill. He’s bright-eyed, full of energy when he leads her by the hand so they can start their next big adventure.

After spending the afternoon pretending to be samurai and spacemen and dragons, they spot a crow in the bushes, hopping around and pecking at the dirt. There’s nothing  _particularly_  intriguing about it, but it catches their attention nonetheless, sleek black feathers and beady black eyes.

Fuyuhiko wants to pet it, or catch it, or something. She’s not entirely sure what the plan is, only that he decides to creep up slowly to get close.

The crow stops what it’s doing and stares at him approaching, cautious. Fuyuhiko gets close enough to the crow he could touch it, if he tried, but then the crow rears up at him, squawking and flapping its wings frantically. It’s a flurry of activity. One minute Fuyuhiko’s standing there and the next he’s flailing on the ground. He screams too, shrill and loud. The crow flies off, and Fuyuhiko is left in the grass, frazzled and covered in dirt and feathers.

She knows she shouldn’t, but she can’t help it. She’d been startled too, and now the initial buzzing feeling of fear and surprise has settled into something that tickles the pit of her belly, especially when she sees Fuyuhiko sitting there, eyes as wide as saucers and a feather in his hair.

She doubles over laughing.

It breaks his trance. Fuyuhiko scrubs his knuckles over his eyes and scowls at her. “Don’t laugh at me!” he barks. She tries. She really does. But his face is flushed scarlet and it makes the dirt on his cheeks stand out all the more. She laughs even harder. “Quit it! I mean it!”

She mashes her hands over her mouth to try and stop it, but somehow that’s even worse. Her laughter comes out in quick inhales through her nose, leaving her dizzy and giddy. Her stomach is starting to hurt.

He glares at her, his eyes narrowed and his face pinched, and when she doesn’t stop, he dusts off the feathers, climbs to his feet and stomps away.

That’s enough to sober her up. “Where are you going?” she asks.

He doesn’t respond; he just keeps walking away. She pushes herself to her feet and follows after him.

“Fuuchan, wait,” she calls.

He doesn’t wait. He doesn’t even turn around. He keeps his eyes forward and his stride brisk. She struggles to keep up with his pace; her sandals are loose and the kimono is still new, wrapped tight around her legs.

“Wait!” she calls, more urgently. “Fuuchan! Please wait!”

He’s going too fast. It’s like he’s suddenly a freight train, speeding down his path with no regard to any of his surroundings. “Wait!!”

One of her sandals dislodges, sliding precariously beneath the arch of her foot. It throws her off balance, makes her stumble and tangles her kimono around her legs even more. She barely manages a gasp before she tumbles forward.

It’s the sound of her hitting the ground that finally makes Fuyuhiko turn.

For a moment, he just stares, eyes wide and afraid, and then it’s like he’s on overdrive. He rushes to her and kneels by her side, hands hovering in the air frantically. She’s already on her knees, examining the scrape on her elbow. It’s red and it hurts, but it doesn’t hurt as much as the pain bubbling in her chest, tight and hot. Her chin aches.

“Why didn’t you wait?” she sniffles.

He doesn’t respond, fingers twisted in the front of his robe. He helps her find her sandal and put it back on, and when she’s back on her feet, he takes her hand.

They walk the rest of the way home, hand-in-hand.

 

* * *

 

It’s not until they’re fourteen, and she’s walking three paces behind the young master does she understand.

She’s accompanying him home, like she’s been doing since he entered middle school. She stares at the young master’s retreating back, the set of his shoulders and the confidence of his walk.

They reach a crosswalk. The young master rocks back on his heels to get more comfortable while he waits for the light to change.

She looks down at the distance between their feet. He’s close enough he could bump his shoulders against her front, if he tried.

She takes two steps back to grant him his space.

It was never about keeping up.

It’s about knowing her place.


	18. Constellations

She has a knack, it turns out, for this boss business.

(A year, or even a few months ago, she would’ve insisted there was no way she could handle the responsibility. She wasn’t made for this purpose. She wouldn’t do very well.)

(She’s glad she was wrong.)

Part of it comes from upbringing. It helps that she was raised in an environment where criminal dealings happened on the daily. She’s organized. She understands the balancing act of the politics. She knows the dangers. She has no false expectations of this perfect, pristine organization, but she is not without her hopes either.

The rest comes from perseverance. As it turns out, _wanting_ something—enough to fight for it—is a very powerful motivator to make it happen. Since returning to Kobe, they’ve approached rebuilding the clan the way they always hoped: together, side-by-side.

He meant it when he said he wanted them to be equals. She understands now. It was never about _serving_ him, becoming something she thought he needed. It’s about rising to the task by being exactly who she is. It means being a part of the picture instead of watching from the background. (Ostensibly, it also means more executive work; that’s the nature of the job.) It’s less action now than when they were younger, but neither of them mind. Keeping all the cogs and pieces running smoothly takes up enough of their time.

(She doesn’t think her heart will ever stop stuttering when the yakuza members call her “boss” too, but she isn’t exactly bothered by the thought of getting used to it.)

They plan. They build. They compare notes constantly. The table they share for work ends up strewn with materials of all sorts: official documents and stacks of folders and various writing instruments. Her allotted space is covered end-to-end with great big sheets of butcher paper detailing port routes and building schematics. She hunts down important information in blue highlighter, dates and places and people so they can coordinate their schedules accordingly.

Fuyuhiko mostly works with the numbers. He’s always been good with them. He carefully calculates profit margins, and comes up with figures that make sense, and makes sure they won’t be running on fumes by the end of the month. With the current economic landscape of the world, it’s harder to manage now than it would’ve been years ago. Resources are scarce. Partnerships are strained. He knows that, and he puts his whole focus on making it work anyway.

Inevitably, this means she ends up finished with her side of the work before him. While she jots down the last of her notes into their shared timeline, he’s still trying to sort out the logistics of their latest proposal. (It’s a deal with a big transport company. If they can make it work, it’ll be easier for them to reestablish the international foundations they’d lost.)

She doesn’t mind. It’s important that he gets this done. She rests her elbows on the table and watches him work.

He’s dressed down for the evening. He’s still in his button-down shirt, but his tie is absent, and his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. She can see the cloud of freckles on his arms that she knows stretch up all the way to his shoulders. He’d rather hide them, when he can, but she likes them all the same. Sometimes she thinks she can find new freckles that weren’t there before, which is ridiculous. They’re just freckles. She shouldn’t know them by heart, or even care about their arrangement.

She does anyway. In the moment, she’s mesmerized by the pictures she sees in the scattering of freckles.

She reaches over with her highlighter, and connects the dots on his arm.

He looks up for only a second, just enough to see what she’s doing, and then he goes back to work. It’s not his dominant arm, so he can keep writing without fuss, but she notices how he keeps his arm very still while she doodles.

It’s silly. She means to simply pass the time, but she quickly loses herself in the game. She connects dot after dot, like his freckles are the stars, and she’s mapping out the constellations. They’re basic shapes at first, boxes and triangles and stars, but she mostly sees animals. A fox’s pointed ears and sharp snout. A sparrow’s spread wings and feathery tail. The floppy ears of a basset hound. No matter where she looks, she finds the animals every time.

She’s so caught up in her little game that it takes her a moment to realize he’s gone completely still and quiet. She looks up. Inexplicably, he’s stopped what he was doing so he can watch her.

“Oh,” she says. (She feels the heat crawl up the back of her neck.)

She’s distracted him from work. She doesn’t know how long he’s been watching her, but there are enough doodles on his arm to cover him from knuckles to elbow.

“What’s this one supposed to be?” he asks, pointing to a doodle by his wrist.

She looks down. “It’s a tiger,” she answers, tracing her fingertip along the blue lines. “There’s the tail, here, and that’s the head.” She’s not sure if it makes sense. She’s no artist, by any stretch of the imagination.

He has to squint and twist his neck at an uncomfortable angle, but then his good eye lights up with recognition, and he says, “I see it.”

She smiles bashfully. “I’m sorry for distracting you.”

He doesn’t answer directly, but his eyebrows lift, and then he points to a polar bear by his elbow and says, “Tell me about this one.”

They really should finish this proposal. It’s important, and if they don’t do it sooner than later, they’ll regret it.

They give each other ten minutes—just ten—to find the constellations.

The next day they’re back at it again, papers piled high and heads down. She finishes her part of the work before he does, shuffling together patrol pairs in order to compensate for Otsuka’s absence while his broken arm heals.

Fuyuhiko is still working on getting an inventory of the containers coming to port at the end of the week. He mutters bits of numbers and arithmetic under his breath. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows again.

It might be presumptuous to consider it an invitation. It’s likely more for comfort than anything else (and really, she shouldn’t be keeping his arm hostage in the first place, not when he sometimes likes to rest his temple against his knuckles while he thinks), but as soon as she touches the felt tip of her highlighter to his skin, she sees the smile stretch across his cheeks, just like she hoped she would.


	19. Should

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original post is [here](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/post/168877004183/should).

Anyone with ears and proper hearing can see that he and Peko speak very, very differently. They grew up together, but the Kansai dialect has never sounded as harsh on her as it does on him. The cursing doesn’t help matters, of course, but even now, his brand of colorful vocabulary hasn’t made it into Peko’s. Not in the same way.

They get asked about it all the time, people wondering where Peko is from. They guess Tokyo or Yokohama or Nagoya the most. They’re always surprised to hear she’s from Kobe, just like him.

Today they’re meeting with a business contact from Chiba, a Mr. Ieyoshi Shimohira, discussing trade routes over cups of tea. Shimohira looks between him and Peko and asks, “And where is Mrs. Kuzuryuu from?” Peko recites the same answer she’s given time and time again, with the same bored politeness. The reaction they get is no less surprised though.

“Kobe! I would’ve never guessed. Your voice carries too softly for such a rough area.” Shimohira picks up a tea biscuit and snaps into it; he speaks around a half-full mouth. “I suppose it’s the best outcome, though. Women shouldn’t curse.”

(It still happens, even now. Any variation of “Peko should” makes his spine prickle and his jaw stiffen, barely restrained anger scattering through his joints.)

Somehow Peko doesn’t miss a beat. She looks up from stirring lemon juice into her tea, stares Mr. Shimohira straight in the eye, and says coolly, “Get fucked.”

Fuyuhiko loses half his tea choking on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 


	20. Meet me at the stoplight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original post is [here](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/post/169455307463/i-hope-you-feel-better-soon-in-the-meantime-how).
> 
> I was sick for a month. It sucked.

Fuyuhiko is in the middle of taking out the clean laundry when he hears a dull crash coming from the den. He’d blame it on Daisuke, if Daisuke weren’t already at his feet, batting at the bottom of his pant leg. So when he goes to investigate, and finds Peko there, kneeling to pick up a jar of pens she’d dropped, he can’t help but glare.

“You march your ass back to bed right now.”

She throws him a look over her shoulder, still picking up pens. Her nose is bright red. “No,” she says defiantly.

“Whaddya mean  _no?!”_

“I have work to do,” she answers, standing and dumping the pens back onto the desk, and if her voice weren’t as gravelly as it sounded, maybe he would’ve backed down.

“Hey, hey!” He scrubs a hand through his hair vigorously.  _“C’mon._  We talked about this! You said you’d take it easy until you got better!”

“That was four days ago. I can’t sit idle any longer. I have to—” She suddenly dissolves into a fit of coughs, so strong she has to to grab the edge of the table to keep balance. “—I have to finish organizing the bid proposal before Aoshima arrives on Monday. The account could fall through i-if I—” She doesn’t finish, succumbing to more coughing.

Fuyuhiko sighs, walking over and touching her elbow gently. “Hey. The account’s  _fine._  Peko, just look at yourself, okay? You’re in no condition to be working. You should be in bed, resting.”

She turns her head away, to keep from coughing in his direction. “But the account. It’s important. It’s my responsibility. We’re supposed to— I’m supposed to—” He doesn’t catch whatever she’s trying to say; her voice drops to a soft, grating whisper.

“What?” he urges, squeezing her elbow. “What’s the matter?”

She doesn’t lift her head to look at him, but he feels the way the muscles in her arm tense beneath his fingertips. She says, almost too soft for him to hear, “We’re supposed to do this together.”

He is struck, then, not only by the serious, quavering quality of her voice, but also the implication that he would ever forget. (He wants to laugh at the sheer absurdity of the thought, but she wouldn’t say it if she didn’t mean it.)

“I ain’t leaving you behind,” he manages, rubbing his thumb into the soft skin of her forearm. “I’m waiting for you to get better so we can get back at it. It’s different. Doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten our promise.” He tacks on, with a wry smile, “And hey, where would I be without you, boss?”

It gets her to laugh, at the very least, as much as a raspy breath counts for. (She’s still getting used to the whole “boss” thing, but damn does it ever suit her.) He curls his fingers more firmly around her arm. “So whaddya say, huh? Come back to bed?”

She doesn’t answer right away, her brows pinched and her mouth turned down. He fears she might try to fight him on the matter again, but then she asks, “… Will you stay with me for a bit?”

Relief washes over him like a wave. He smiles. “I’ll do you one better. I’ll go get that book you’ve been reading, and we can read it together. How’s that?”

Normally she wouldn’t want him so close, lest he catch what’s been ailing her. But battling the flu for the past four days must have her so worn down and exhausted that she just looks at him, heart-achingly vulnerable. “Please?”

“You got it.”

He helps her make the short walk back to bed, and when she’s settled and comfortable, he crawls in beside her.


	21. 3:00 P.M.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt was for a The Last of Us AU.
> 
> Original post is [here](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/post/170288763498/so-ive-been-playing-through-the-last-of-us).

The apartment is silent.

Any other time, any other day and age, he’d be the unfortunate bastard listening to the clock on the wall tick-tick-ticking away until his composure cracks. But times have changed. There’s not enough power to go around, and wasting batteries on a damn clock is inefficient and senseless.

She’s chosen the most opportune time to go AWOL. Patrols around Area One are at their most congested, and the military quarters are a stone’s throw away; he’d never be able to sneak by without an extra set of eyes to watch his back. Even then, he’d try anyway, but she’s taken all their ration cards too, so he can’t exactly do any bartering.

No matter which way he looks at it, he knows it wasn’t an accident. It was by design.

He waits. He paces. He kills time dismantling and reassembling his pistol over and over again, glancing at the door every handful of minutes.

(It feels oddly mundane, in a way, like he’s an angry spouse waiting for his wife to walk through the door at three in the morning.)

(He wonders if he should embrace the spot of normalcy—while he still has it.)

The doorknob rattles. He tenses, out of habit, grip firm around his pistol.

She walks through the door, thankfully alive, thankfully whole. He tucks his gun back into his holster.

Her eyes meet his only briefly, and then dart away. She steps around him to go into the kitchen.

“So what,” he says incredulously. “That’s it?” He spreads his arms wide in frustration. “You got  _nothing_ to say to me.”

She grabs a can of rationed beans from the counter and works it open with her knife. The grinding of metal on metal grates at his ears.

“Santiago agreed to our terms,” she says. She sounds exhausted. “He’ll have the shipment by Friday.”

He scoffs, “Woulda made a whole lot more sense if I had been  _actually there.”_

The can opens with a creak. She stares down at its contents. It’s a goopy mess, colorless and unappetizing. Can’t count much for military rations. When she can’t stand the sight any longer, she looks up at him. She’s normally so guarded, but in her eyes, he sees a jumble of emotion: concern, conflict, wariness, all at war with each other. He braces himself to hear the worst of it:  _I didn’t need you there._ _You weren’t important to the deal._ _You’re a liability now._

She grimaces—at him or the beans, he doesn’t know. She sets the can down, the food untouched.

“You are too easily agitated with Santiago and his men,” she decides.

“Yeah, because the guy’s a  _nut._  He’s always trying to take us for a ride.”

“That,” she says. She jabs her knife into the worn wood of the kitchen counter until it sticks straight up. “That, from you. That is what I mean.”

“M…  _Me?!”_  He doesn’t even try to keep down the disbelief. “What about  _him?!_ _He’s_ the one who fuckin’ threw five of his guys to the dogs because he ‘didn’t like their attitudes!’  _I’m_  not the unpredictable one here!”

“It doesn’t matter. Whatever your opinion of him is, we needed the cargo.”

The hair on the back of his neck stands on end. He wants to fight it.  _What do you mean it doesn’t matter?!_  rises on his tongue, but he knows she’s not wrong. As good as they are, the increase in security has worn their merchandise thin. It’s the only reason they’d agreed to barter with Kevin Santiago in the first place.

But he’s seen the way Santiago works. He’s seen how he’s broken arms, shot out toes, smashed glasses over heads for the pettiest of reasons. Santiago is narcissistic, volatile, too comfortable in his spot in the firearms empire for his own good.

The bristling anger sinks down to some spot in the pit of his belly instead, heavy and foreboding. “You were alone with him.” He has to practically spit the words out between his teeth. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that was,” he adds on, and it’s not a question.

She falters. “He was… civil, for once.”

“I don’t care if he was serving fuckin’ tea and cookies!  _That’s not the goddamn point!”_

He’s crossed a line, he thinks. Her jaw sets, and her shoulders square up, defensively. Arguments aren’t all that common between them, but tensions are always going to be high with a horde of infected running around just beyond the walls. He’s livid, and she’s exhausted, and it’s around this time that she decides not to bother. She tries to step around him, to give either one of them time to cool off. (Logically, he knows that’s probably the best course of action.)

He grabs her wrist before she can pass.

“Hey.” He doesn’t mean for it to come out as wavering as it is, but it does. He looks at her, only through the corner of his eye; she doesn’t look back. “Are we together on this,” he says, “or not?”

The fine bones in her wrist flex beneath his fingertips. She still doesn’t look at him, but her brow and the corners of her eyes crease in concentration. She drops her head and sighs. “I’m sorry.”

The fight falls out of him, like cold mist tumbling out of an open freezer. “You thought you were doing what was best,” he concedes. (She’s always doing that, always has, even before the infestation.) His grip around her wrist loosens; she doesn’t pull away. “But no more sneaking behind each others’ backs, okay? We’re partners. If we do any sneaking, it’s around those uniform bastards. Deal?”

She looks at him, then. Her eyes are focused, clear. “All right.”

“All right,” he echoes. “Here.” He grabs her untouched can of beans and hands it to her, and then grabs an unopened can for himself. “Eat up. We’ll have supper. And then we can talk about what to do about Santiago.”


	22. Sweet Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original post is [here](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/post/171889348703/sweet-dreams).
> 
> This is for my [Gambler/Yakuza AU](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/tagged/gambler%2Fyakuza-au).

“What’s that?”

“Fuckin’ hell, princess, what’s it look like?”

“Don’t get cute with me,” she sighs. “I know what it  _is._  What’s it  _for?”_

He shrugs. “They got this stuff  _everywhere_  right now. Can’t really blame me for falling for a hard sell.”

It’s not entirely true. It’s a little box, packed with white chocolate-covered baton wafers nested in a bed of crinkly paper. He had snagged it up at a fancy little chocolaterie in a fancy little department store. Nobody had strong-armed him into it; it had been on a whim. It was expensive, as far as chocolates go, but nowhere near out of his price range. The woman behind the counter had assured him whoever he was getting it for was a lucky, lucky person.

Peko stares him dubiously. They’re not teenagers in high school, hoping for secret gifts slipped into their shoe lockers, and he’s certain she gets fancier, more impressive offerings from other guys than a few pieces of chocolate.

It’s still customary, though.

He nudges the box closer. “Want one?”

Her eyes swing down to the box, and then back up to his face. “If you’re offering,” she says, “then that’s fine.”

He hands her a wafer. She bites into it delicately, one hand beneath her chin to catch the crumbs. It’s careful, as much as it is carefully-crafted, but he can’t keep himself from watching. Everything about her is so deliberate, from the firm plant of her feet to the golden pin gleaming in her hair. Sometimes he thinks he has her figured out, and then he’ll find one more thing to consider.

She dusts off her hands when she finishes. There’s not a speck out of place on her clothes.

He picks up another wafer. “Another?” he asks.

She considers, her fingers flexing against the bar top. “Yes,” she says.

He tucks it between his lips and leans forward.

Credit where credit is due: she keeps herself remarkably composed, even though she still goes pink, across the top of her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. He’s able to grin, even around the wafer. Maybe he’s just getting more predictable.

She leans in.

In all honesty, he doesn’t expect her to be so close. The wafer is short. She bites onto the other end, and their noses are already almost bumping. She’s wearing something that smells floral, maybe with hints of citrus. A shiver races up his spine, involuntarily, and he’s sure she can feel it, connected this close. She’s testing him, weighing out his resolve and poise.

She can try. He’s not gonna be the one to pull away first.

But she doesn’t back down either. She works her way forward slowly, with delicate, precise nibbles, and each snap rings in his ears like the ground is shaking. (He wonders what her teeth would feel like grazing his skin.) He holds his breath and keeps very still. (And that way he can’t breathe in her scent the way he wants to.) Her hands fall on his shoulders, to keep herself steady. Her grip is confident, assured. She tilts her chin, realigning herself,  _fitting_  her shape better against  _his_  shape.

He closes his eyes.

Distantly, he hears it snap again, and the significance of it doesn’t register in his head until her hands slide off his shoulders and the space she occupied is suddenly too cold, and when he opens his eyes again, she’s  _grinning._

His brain works too sluggishly for him to catch up. She leans forward, one hand cradling the back of his head. “I should have mentioned before,” she murmurs, so close he swears he can taste the white chocolate upon her lips. “I’m not too fond of sweet things.”

She pulls away, just like that. She shoulders her purse and slides off the barstool and saunters off. She’s halfway across the room before he realizes he’s still holding his end of the wafer between his teeth like an asshole. He swallows it down, quickly.

“Hey!” he shouts after her. “This was supposed to be a gift for  _you!”_


	23. Nest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original post is [here](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/post/172326837226/nest).

Peko is seven months along.

There’s no hiding it at this point. The Future Foundation knows it. Strangers and people on the streets see it. Peko is still going to work, so all their potential business partners and vendors know too.

She’s had to let out most of her clothes, or rely on high, empire waists for comfort. The maternity items donated by Asahina have helped too. He doesn’t mind, of course. Quite the fuckin’ opposite. Peko is carrying their child,  _theirs._  Something they’ve been wanting for years. Something the world said they could never have.

That night, Peko prepares to take her bath, and he blurts out, “Can I join you?”

She looks at him, her eyes curious but focused. He feels his face growing hot. It’s not about sex; it’s not even about modesty. He’s a father-to-be. Their daughter will be here in just a few short weeks, but right now, he wants to feel the raw joy of parenthood, with the two of them stripped of their defenses. “Please? I’d like to hold both of you at once.”

She says, “Yes.”

They rinse and wash themselves off, and then they climb into the tub together. The bath fits one person just fine, but it’s a challenge for two, let alone when one of them is heavily pregnant. (He’d like to overhaul it for a bigger one, one day, but for now it’s what they can manage.) He sits behind while Peko settles in his lap. They’ve done this before, and it works best when she sinks down against his chest. It makes it a snug fit with her knees drawn up and her bump in the way, but it works.

When she’s comfortable, she takes hold of his wrists and places his hands on her belly.

It was his idea in the first place, but he has to admit, he likes this better than he had anticipated. The bath water is warm, and Peko is warm, and he feels simultaneously weightless and secure, with the three of them here, vulnerable and raw, but within the safe comforts of their own home.

The baby kicks beneath his hands, a sharp, fluttering movement. Peko grunts in discomfort. She’s an energetic one, for sure. The doctors all said the third trimester would be the most challenging, and though Peko doesn’t often complain about pregnancy pains, he can always tell.

He rubs a heart-shape into her skin, over and over again, in an effort to calm the baby down. His chances are always about fifty-fifty. Sometimes he thinks the baby is soothed by his touch, but the rest of the time she’s kicking up a storm, like she’s trying to say hello.

Right now, it’s the latter.

She kicks and thumps and fusses about like she’s practicing martial arts. “Hey,” he says. (The doctors say the baby’s hearing should be fully-formed by now too.) “C’mon. Settle down in there, kid.”

Peko lets out a breathy laugh, her chin dipping beneath the surface of the water. “She’s eager to meet you.”

“Yeah, yeah, well, she can wait.” He pats her bump. “Take it from me, kid. You don’t gotta go rushing into things before you’re ready.”

Peko lifts a hand and rests it on his cheek. He buries his nose in her hair. “She’ll be a handful, when she’s finally out,” Peko says.

“I bet.”

“She’ll be running us both ragged before long.”

“Mmm.”

(But he imagines a little girl with Peko’s eyes and face, scampering down the halls, filling the house with laughter.)

The water sloshes around them as she readjusts her position to get more comfortable. He waits for her to settle down before he rests his hands on her belly again. He smooths his thumb over the curve where her bump meets her waist. “You scared?”

She considers. “I think so.”

“Me too.”

“It’ll be… a lot.”

That’s one way of putting it. It’s more than just the health hazards. It’s more than just the child-rearing, even. She’ll be monitored as much as they are. Everyone knows what they’ve done in the past, and their daughter will be pinned to it by extension, through no fault of her own. It’ll be an uphill battle for— the rest of their lives, probably.

It’s too early for either of them to say  _it’ll be worth it._

But goddammit if they aren’t going to try.

He rests his cheek against the crown of her head. “I’m here.”

Peko covers his hands with hers, warm within the water. “I know,” she says. “Me too.”


	24. Braided

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for a friend! It's a Rapunzel/Tangled AU.
> 
> Original post is [here](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/post/172742902064/braided).

Before there is a tower, before there is an escape, before there is a duty-bound warrior, or a prince with a fire in his heart, or an adventure that changes them both, before any of that— there is an infant girl, alone and afraid in the world.

The emperor of the kingdom finds her, pitiful as she is. He holds her up to the light, while she shrieks and cries, and says, “You will become the sword and shield for my son. From this day forward, your only purpose is to act out his will.”

He places her in a high tower deep in the woods with only a single window for access. He cares for her on his own, and when she is old enough, he explains it, before she even knows to question it. On her eighteenth birthday, she will become a guard for his son. Like this, locked away on her own, she will never be distracted from her duty.

She agrees.

“Everything you see outside that window is a danger to his well-being,” Master Kuzuryuu says. “You must not let that happen, whatever the cost. One day, his safety will be your responsibility, and you will understand your place in the world.”

She practices, with every discipline she can. Archery, spears, knives, hand-to-hand, though she is best with a blade. Master Kuzuryuu considers it a noble practice, worthy of the young master’s guard.

And when she is not busy practicing, she braids. As much of her hair as she can reach, though it coils long enough to cover her tower room in winding strands.

(Master Kuzuryuu would have it cut, every year until she was ten. She remembers one day begging him to let her keep it long.  _Please,_  she had said,  _may we grow it out?_ Master Kuzuryuu had agreed, on the condition that she would cut it the second she loses sight of what is important. She has yet to break that vow.)

She thinks of the prince, while she twines long strands between her fingers. She dreams of him often. She does not know him, but she wants to— what kind of person he must be for him to need her protection so much. He must be kind; someone the kingdom can respect and admire for his generosity. He is patient, putting others’ needs before his own. And he is gentle, like water. Every time she thinks of him, she feels herself smiling.  _Yes,_  she thinks.  _That is the person I will protect._

At night, her thoughts take on a more sinister form. She thinks of traitors taking advantage of his kindness. She thinks of dangers he will not be able to foresee. She thinks of enemies from far-off lands, sailing over oceans and trekking over mountains for his blood. The kingdom is prosperous; he’ll be ascending the throne, and they’ll want to take that away from him. She’ll make sure that never happens, even if it means her life.

Anything. She’ll do anything for him.

So when she is seventeen, on the cusp of her eighteenth birthday, and she hears, “Let down your hair to me,” on a warm summer day, as the sun starts to dip behind the mountains, she does so without question, both hands wrapped tight around the base of her hair to keep it from pulling her scalp. She thinks, perhaps, Master Kuzuryuu sounds a little different today, a little shriller, a little sharper. She does not think about how much lighter he feels, or how he’s visiting outside of his normal schedule.

But when he reaches the window, she sees the face she’s only ever seen in her dreams.

They lock eyes, equal measures of wonder and astonishment. (Her own imagination could never do him justice.) His eyes are bright and expressive, pale green around the edges and darker closer to the center. The sun shines red-gold in his hair, like a halo, radiant and ethereal. His cheeks glow faintly pink from the climb.

He breathes, “What the fuck?”

She startles enough to lose her grip on her hair.

He has already stepped through the window, though. He looks at everything in turn, the state of her room, and the weapons on the walls, and her long, long hair, covering the floor like vines. He looks confused, and she understands. It’s too early. She wasn’t supposed to meet him yet. It’s supposed to be… different. More formal. He would understand better that way.

He looks back at her. “Who are you?” he asks, but he doesn’t wait for her to answer. He waves a wide arc at her room. “What the fuck is all this?” He sweeps a hand through his hair in frustration. “This is what my dad’s been hiding all these years. Some girl in a tower?”

“Are you the emperor’s son?” she asks, when she finds her voice. She knows she doesn’t have to ask; she can already see it in his face: youthful and boyish, but he has his father’s sharp brow and stern jaw. Her heart beats too quickly to catch up, because he’s  _real,_  flesh and blood, standing before her.

He purses his lips into a thin line. “So it’s real. My dad’s been sneaking off here. For…” He trails off. He looks her up and down, brows pinched, like he’s trying to put all the pieces together.

It’s too early.

She tries her best to explain. “Master Kuzuryuu has been caring for me. Preparing me for my eighteenth birthday, for the day that I would meet you.”

“Who are you?” he repeats.

She’s rehearsed this before, planned it over and over again in her head. “Peko Pekoyama,” she says, resolute, “and I am sworn to protect you.”

“You  _what?”_

She explains it. All of it. Her life spent alone in the tower, fighting and training and practicing, for duty, for honor. For him. He listens, his face grim and ashen, and none of it feels right. (He was supposed to be— what? She doesn’t know. Perhaps not necessarily  _happy_  to meet her, but more than  _this.)_

“So you’re telling me,” he says, “my dad’s been keeping you locked up in this tower, since the day you were born, so that one day you could be my  _babysitter?”_

“Guard,” she corrects.

“What- _the-fuck_ -ever,” he snaps. (She can’t help but flinch; never in her dreams would she have imagined him having such a harsh tongue.) “Why the hell would I need a  _guard_  in the first place? Doesn’t he know I can damn well take care of myself?”

“Master Kuzuryuu says the kingdom could attract many enemies. I am trained in many forms of combat, ever since I was a little girl. I would be able to protect you against any danger.”

“I don’t give a shit about any of that.”

She does not know what to say. He says it so easily, without hesitation, that it dries up her throat.

He gives her another once-over. “And you’ve just been here, doing whatever my dad tells you to do?”

“I have been here,” she agrees, finding her voice again. “But not just because it is my duty. It is my own choice.”

He laughs, without humor. “Yeah, right. This tower has no goddamn doors, or stairs, for that matter. Has my dad let you leave, even once?”

She thinks. She tries to remember. Master Kuzuryuu has been her only human contact her whole life. He has lectured her many times on the dangers of the outside world. She remembers seeing a fox, once, circling the base of the tower, its tail bright and bushy. She had wanted to ask Master Kuzuryuu if she could get a closer look, just once, just for five minutes, and then she’d go straight back to practice.

 _Has Master Kuzuryuu ever let me leave?_  She looks down at her hands. She cannot think of a single time.

“No,” she says, quietly.

“Unbelievable,” he rasps.  _“Unbelievable._ What kind of… fucked up  _bullshit.”_

“He’s been doing all this for you,” she says, but even in her own ears, it sounds weak.

“Bull _shit.”_ His patience snaps, like a taut wire. “This is all  _bullshit.”_  He kicks at a knitting basket near his foot. It sends spools of yarn flying everywhere, and she is too stunned to be frightened.

(He is kind. He is patient. He is gentle.)

The fantasy crumbles, days and nights spent dreaming about a caring prince she’d be proud to call her master. (He is kind. He is patient. He is gentle.) He is none of those things. He is a foul-mouthed, ill-tempered boy, and he does not even want her.

He doesn’t stop with the basket. Whatever anger he has inside of him explodes. He stomps around demolishing everything in his path, like the entire place sickens him. He yanks a tapestry straight off the wall. He throws a water jug across the room, where it shatters into a million pieces. He flips her writing desk over, and it scatters pencils and papers all over the floor.

“Please stop,” she whispers.

He doesn’t hear her, or he doesn’t listen. She needs to stop him, or calm him down, or  _something;_  she thinks perhaps it might be best to wait until he tires himself out— But then he picks up the little cat doll at the foot of her bed—the one thing she had sewn to be her only companion throughout the years ( _no,_ she reminds herself, she has no need for companions)—and panic alights in her chest. She doesn’t think. She grabs his shoulder.

 _“Please,”_  she says, behind gritted teeth. “Don’t.”

He stops, long enough to look at her, and something softens in his brow and his eyes. His shoulders drop. The doll falls from his grip.

She lets go.

“Fuck it,” he says quietly.

He stalks over to the window. She doesn’t realize what he’s doing, until he swings one leg over.

“Wait! Don’t—”

He doesn’t stop to listen. Perhaps he’s still too angry to think straight. He swings the other leg over without pause—and plummets, shrieking.

She doesn’t think. She runs to the window, both hands gripping her hair. She whips it to the side and then back around, and with a  _snap,_  it loops around his waist, like a lasso. She holds on tight, digs the heels of her feet into the floor and  _pulls._  His weight catches. He stops short of the ground, dangling harmlessly in the air.

“Fuck,” he breathes. “Fuckin’  _hell.”_  He doesn’t thank her. He kicks and thrashes until he manages to untangle himself.

“Wait,” she calls after him. “Where are you going?”

“Home,” he says, “to have a talk with my folks about  _why_  they think they can keep some strange teenage girl in a tower so that she can be my  _nanny.”_

 _“Please_  come back. It’s dangerous out there.”

“I can  _handle_  it!”

“But—”

He’s almost too far away to see, between all the trees and leaves.

Her fingers curl around the windowsill. Soon it will be dark. He could get hurt on his way back to the castle. Wolves or bandits or any number of things Master Kuzuryuu has warned her about, and just the thought sends a chill down her spine.

“Wait,” she calls again. “I’m coming with you.”

He stops, and spins around. “You  _what?”_

If she uses her hair like a pulley, she can lower herself safely. She won’t be able to get back up, but that…

Her heartbeat quickens.

That’s not important right now. She can worry about the consequences later.

She only grabs one weapon: the short sword dangling by the mantle. Simple, yet practical. She does not know what she’ll expect out there, but she’ll be ready. She made a vow: never lose sight of what’s important.

He is not what she expected. But she vowed to keep him safe, so that’s what she’ll do.

She whips her hair up, until it catches on the hook she uses to pull up Master Kuzuryuu during his weekly visits. She swings both legs out the window, perched on the sill, her grip firm but trembling around her hair. She’s never done this before. Trepidation and fear and wariness all hammer in her chest.

She jumps off. (As she descends, she cannot help but look back up at the window, growing smaller and smaller by the second, the place she called  _home_  her entire life.) Already, the air smells different, open and clean. She slows, right before she hits the ground, and stops there.

He’s watching her, arms crossed; not impatient, but perhaps irritated. He could have left her behind, if he wanted. He would have had the time. But he waited.

She lowers her foot.

Her toes touch grass, and the rush she feels is indescribable.


	25. Silken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one has some suggestive themes, but isn't explicit. Please read at your own discretion.

Peko is nervous about something.

It’s subtle, but it’s there all the same. She’s more jittery than usual. She keeps sneaking glances at him when she thinks he isn’t looking. She drifts off into her own head, and gets embarrassed when he notices.

He’s not stupid though. He knows it  _probably_  has something to do with their anniversary, and it  _probably_  concerns her gift for him. That’s the only thing that makes sense. Business is going well, as is the expansion to their home. As far as he knows, she isn’t having any trouble with any of their friends, and Peko always comes to him if she has a problem.

He decides not to worry about it. It’s not the bad type of nervous, anyway. He knows what that looks like. It’s just… weird. That’s the only word he has for it.

He puts it at the back of his mind.

For their anniversary, they book a trip to Hakone, just the two of them. Naegi has confirmed the relief efforts in the area have been going very well, and while it cannot compare to its former glory, it’s still a very beautiful city, with fresh air and peaceful scenery.

They make the preparations. They compile all sorts of lists and priorities for the clan to run through while they’re away, for their own peace of mind. Otsuka and the rest of the gang tell them to enjoy their week together, with varying amounts of snark.

They board the train, and they go.

They stay at a quaint little hotel by the caldera lake. They spend the days leading up to their anniversary enjoying their surroundings: walks around the lake, tours through the botanical gardens, trips to the shrine. There’s a large, rolling grass field at the base of the mountain that reminds them so much of the one they frequented in their childhood.

(They visit parts of the city that are still undergoing reconstruction too. Naegi was right; it seems it’s going well, and the people here are more optimistic than they are despondent. He and Peko are both glad. In the end, they wouldn’t be able to break their spirits, even if they tried. And they  _did_  try.)

Peko’s mood improves, the closer they get. Whatever was bothering her before, she’s figured it out.

The day of their anniversary arrives. They dress formally for the night, him in his crisp dark suit, and her in her red flowy dress and her hair falling in soft curls over her shoulders. He wears a red tie to match. They have dinner together at a fancy little teppanyaki restaurant, where they have a breathtaking view of the mountains.

When they make it back to the hotel room, they exchange gifts. He’s bought her the dress she’d been eying during one of their walks. It’s pretty and pale blue, with a ruched neckline and a floral pattern. It complements her eyes.

Peko holds it up against herself in the mirror and beams. “I love it. Thank you.”

It’s gonna look  _beautiful_  on her. Maybe they’ll have a lunch date in the gardens, and she can wear it then. “Try it on,” he suggests. But she flashes him an enigmatic smile and shakes her head.

“Later,” she says. “Your turn.”

Peko has baked him a cake, carefully decorated in icing with the date of their anniversary, and even more delicious than it looks. He’s not sure how she managed to transport it from Kobe to Hakone without ruining all the painstaking details, but she did, and he loves it. He tugs her down until she’s close enough for him to peck her on the lips, even though there’s still a smudge of chocolate at the corner of his mouth. She laughs, and wipes it away with her thumb.

“I have one more gift for you,” she whispers, still bent close.

“Oh yeah?”

She smiles. It makes the apples of her cheeks glow.

She doesn’t move, and she doesn’t leave the room to retrieve anything. She takes his hand—

—and guides it under her skirt, crooking his fingers around… what feels like the strap of a garter belt.

His mouth goes dry.

It takes a couple seconds before his brain kicks back into drive, and even after that, it feels like he’s moving in slow-motion. He slowly traces his fingers up the strap until he reaches the top.

It’s lacy.

He looks up at her. “Are you…?”

Peko smiles again, in that glowing way, shy and warm and endeared. “Would you like to see?”

He nods.

He trips over his own feet halfway to the bed. Peko laughs, and he carries her the rest of the way.


	26. Coke Bottles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a prompt.

He and Peko arrive at the party together, but they split soon after, and he loses sight of Peko an hour in. In truth, neither of them really wanted to go. Parties aren’t really their thing, and definitely not college mixers, but then both their inboxes flooded with pesky texts from all their friends wondering where they were.

Maybe he should go find Peko. He doesn’t want to hover over her shoulder all the time, but Owari ditches their conversation to join a game of  _kiku no hana,_  and he’s not in the mood to watch.

So he goes looking for Peko.

He finds her, at the kitchen table. She’s chatting with a guy he doesn’t recognize, a half-full glass of beer cupped between her hands. It  _looks_  amiable, though the guy is clearly drunk himself. He talks loud and waves his arms around.

Peko is no lightweight. That doesn’t mean a few drinks won’t affect her, and at this point, she’s drunk enough that her face glows faintly pink.

Fuyuhiko hangs at the edge of the room and keeps watch.

He’s not the only one. Across the room, he sees Hinata’s attention straying to Peko every once in a while. Fuyuhiko manages to make eye contact with him, and flaps his hand. He’s got this. Hinata nods once and focuses back on his conversation with Koizumi.

There’s a fine, fine line between being  _protective_  and being  _overbearing._  He knows it. He’s experienced it. Peko can take care of herself, and he doesn’t want her to think he’s selfish, but the guy leans in too close for comfort, sometimes, when he pours to refill her glass, enough that it makes Fuyuhiko’s stomach twist into uncomfortable, burning knots.

And Peko’s drunk.

Eventually, the guy excuses himself to fetch another bottle from the kitchen. Fuyuhiko waits a second, and then follows, under the guise of refilling his own drink. (Just water. He drove them both here and he’s not gonna fucking risk it just for a quick buzz.)

The guy’s fiddling with a bottle cap opener, and doing a bad job with it. Fuyuhiko digs around in the cooler for some ice. “What's going on?” he says, casually.

“Not much, man.” He looks over. The guy has grabbed two bottles instead of just one, and the implication is not subtle.

“You gonna take those back to the girl you’re talking to?”

The guy grins. “Yeah.”

“Hey, listen,” Fuyuhiko says. “Hate to break it to you, but I hear she already has a boyfriend.”

He considers it for a moment, and then shrugs. “Yeah? Well he’s not here now, is he?”

Fuyuhiko’s grip around his glass tightens hard enough he’s afraid it might splinter. Breathe in, breathe out. “Guess not,” he says. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. If he turns to look at the guy now, he might sock him in the jaw. But then an idea strikes. “But you see, the thing is—” He glances over his shoulder. “I hear her boyfriend’s one bad motherfucker.”

The guy laughs, but at least it grabs his attention. “Whatever. How bad can he be?”

“No, seriously. I hear he’s served time at least once. He’s got this wicked scar on his face from a knife fight, ask anyone, they’ll tell you. I hear he gets into gang fights all the time.”

“No way. You’re just messing with me.”

“Didn’t you see the tattoo on her wrist? A dragon, right? They have a matching pair, so everyone knows not to mess with ‘em. Seriously, the guy’s bad news. Everyone’s still talking about how he burned down a convenience store because they ran out of his girlfriend’s favorite snack. I heard he keeps a wood board full of rusty nails in his garage, just in case. Y’know, once, I heard someone made fun of his girlfriend in class, and that guy ended up in the hospital for a month. A goddamn  _month.”_

Beneath the drunken flush, the guy goes pale. “… Are you serious?”

“Of course I’m serious. Why else would I be telling you all this? Just to fuck with you? C’mon. So, y’know.” Fuyuhiko shrugs. “I wouldn’t try anything if I were you. Someone might catch wind of it, and then you’ll really be in trouble.”

The guy doesn’t answer. It looks like he gets the picture, though; instead of heading back to the table, he veers right and goes out to the backyard.

Peko’s still at the kitchen table, thumbing through her phone. He sits in the empty seat beside her.

“Fuyuhiko,” she says, like they haven’t seen each other in weeks. She edges closer, like gravity, until their knees are touching.

“Hey,” he says. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, really. I was talking with someone before, but he left.”

“Guess he got bored and went to do something else. Did you have fun?”

“It was all right.” She drops her head against his shoulder and closes her eyes. She sounds exhausted. Parties aren’t their thing. “He talked most of the time. I didn’t really know what to say. It wasn’t too bad, but I’m glad it’s over. What did you do?

“Not much. Talked with a few people. Nothing all that exciting. Everyone else is kinda doing their own thing, y’know?”

“Hm,” she says, in lieu of a coherent answer. She presses her face into the crook of his neck, and the touch sends a pleasant little shiver up his spine.

He laughs. She’s not normally this affectionate in public. “You’re drunk, Peko.”

“I think so,” she murmurs.

She has one hand resting on the table. He bumps his wrist against hers, so he can admire their matching ink. “You wanna go home?”

“Hmm…” It’s fine if she doesn’t. He can stay with her if she wants to hang out a bit more, but there’s a warm, comfy bed with their name on it back home. It’s her choice.

She says, “Yes.”

He grabs his keys, and they head out.


	27. Underrated

Sparkling Justice falls to her knees, her wand clutched in both hands. She struggles to climb back to her feet, but her body feels weak, sapped of all its energy.

King Shadow stands before her, triumphant, his long, dark cape billowing around his ankles. “Give it up, Sparkling Justice!” he cackles, arms outstretched to the sky. “Your precious  _honor_  and  _justice_  can’t save you now! Join me once and for all, and you will be spared!”

“You  _monster!_  I will never join you! Somehow, some way, justice will prevail!”

“That’s what you think!” He cackles again, loud and booming.

“Oh no!” Yusei shouts from a corner of the stage. “Sparkling Justice is in danger! Masked Vindicator, you have to save her!”

From the opposite corner, Masked Vindicator leaps onto the stage, with a sudden burst of trumpets through the speakers. His signature white mask gleams beneath the bright lights.

“Sparkling Justice, you can’t give in! The world needs you to uphold love and honor!  _I_  need you!”

“But I can’t!” Sparkling Justice despairs. “He’s too powerful! I don’t have the strength!”

Masked Vindicator turns suddenly to the audience and throws his arms out pleadingly. “Everyone, Sparkling Justice needs your help! She is strengthened by the power of your hearts! Please, join me in cheering her on! She needs to know we’re all believers of justice!”

The audience immediately erupts in a chorus of “You can do it!” and “Don’t give up!” and “I believe in justice!” A little girl at the front, her hair up in Sparkling Justice pigtails, throws up her hands and shrills,  _“Sparkling Justice, I love you!!”_

Sparkling Justice’s head snaps up. “You’re right! With love and justice on my side, I can’t lose!”

She springs to her feet, reenergized. The children squeal and cheer in delight. She twirls her wand expertly through her fingers, round and round and side-to-side. The speakers blare the Sparkling Justice theme song, upbeat and powerful. The stage is a medley of color: pinks and purples and yellows, all shining around in a magical, mesmerizing pattern.

King Shadow cowers beneath the light, too overcome by the power of friendship.

“Nooo!” he screams in agony. “This isn’t the last you’ve seen of me! One day, darkness and despair will prevail over justice, and you will pay!” He stumbles back through the curtains, lights flashing like lightning and smoke billowing in a haze. He disappears.

“Sparkling Justice, you did it!” Masked Vindicator says.

“I couldn’t have done it without my friends!” She winks at the cheering audience. “And you were a big help too, Masked Vindicator!”

“Once again, justice prevails! Justice…” She holds the syllable, and the audience joins her in shouting,  _“… Complete!”_

Masked Vindicator loops an arm around Sparkling Justice’s waist, and they share a triumphant smile. “And don’t forget, everyone! As long as you believe in justice, Sparkling Justice believes in you!”

She waves her arms around, in her signature, intricate pattern, before she and Masked Vindicator disappear in a puff of smoke and glitter.

* * *

The stage hatch snaps closed above them. The space beneath the stage is dusty, and filled with puffs of haze that have managed to creep in from above.

Arata still has one arm looped around her waist. (He’s not supposed to do that. It had been improvised on his part, and she had gone along with it, because she didn’t want to make a fuss on stage.) Peko tries to shrug him off—as politely as she can—but he holds on.

“The show is over,” she says. “You may let go of me.”

He acts as though he hadn’t heard her. “That was our best show yet, wasn’t it? The kids  _loved_  us!”

They’ve been performing this show for two months now, eight performances a week. She does not think today’s performance was any better nor worse than the others. She tries to placate him anyway. “Yes, it was good, but it’s finished now. Please remove your hand.”

“Aw, come on, don’t be like that! You’re always so serious. We should celebrate, right? What about drinks? I’m buying!”

“I’m scheduled for more appearances today, drinking now would not be wise.”

“Then what about later, when you’re done?”

“Would you  _kindly_  remove your hand from my person,  _thank you.”_

Finally,  _finally,_  he lets go, but he doesn’t look remotely fazed by it. Rather, Arata chuckles, and even that is grating to her ears. “All right, all right. Geez. You know, for someone who plays Sparkling Justice, you really ought to smile more.”

She grits her teeth until her jaw aches. She has half a mind to smack him with the wand she’s still holding, but the prop department worked so hard on it, and it’d be a shame to ruin such hard work, especially on someone like Arata.

“Hey. Takenaka.”

She looks up. Fuyuhiko is leaning against the doorjamb to the hallway, his arms crossed casually in front of his chest. “Boss wants to see you. Said something about that meet-and-greet you’ve been wanting to hold on the west end of the park.”

Arata perks up. “Seriously? Well it’s about time.”

He brushes past Fuyuhiko and disappears down the hall, in full costume, without so much as a  _thank you_ or a  _goodbye._

She does not think it’s possible for her to feel more relieved.

“He’s an ass,” Fuyuhiko says, when Arata is well out of earshot.

Even with the headache throbbing behind her temples, and her jaw still aching, Peko still manages to crack a small smile. “I suppose that’s one way of putting it.”

Arata isn’t the only actor who plays Masked Vindicator at the theme park, but he’s the one she’s paired up with most often. There are times when he is out sick or on vacation, and he is role is temporarily filled in by a stand-by. Those are the days she enjoys the most.

“Look, we’re not blind here. We all know Takenaka is an ass, but you don’t gotta deal with it, y’know?”

Peko shakes her head. “It’s fine. I’ll… I just have to tolerate it. He’s my… partner.” She can’t help but grimace at just the word. (If she had a choice, he wouldn’t be.)

“Right. All I’m saying is, if he’s being an ass, you can let me know.” When she raises a brow, he fumbles. “Or— the staff, or… someone. Not just me.  _Fuck,_  what I’m saying is— you’re not alone.”

“I’m not sure how much good that would do… He… often does these things when we’re in character. He’s a very good actor, and  _Sparkling Justice_  wouldn’t care about Masked Vindicator holding her.”

“Well, then, we can set up some sort of secret code, so you don’t have to break character. Something. Like, you say ‘elephants’ and we’ll know he’s being a creep, and we’ll come help.”

“‘Elephants’?” He’s joking. He  _must_  be. Still, she smiles, even if it feels incredulous.

He shrugs. “Just an idea.”

She realizes that this is the most she and Fuyuhiko have talked in the past two months, and the entire rehearsal process. Not on purpose, on her part, at least. He’s not scheduled for meet-and-greets as often as she is, and even then, Sparkling Justice and Yusei don’t make very many appearances together.

It’s a waste of good talent, in her opinion.

“You did good work today,” she says, with a small smile.

Fuyuhiko snorts. “Yeah, right. Me, with my one line?” He raises a dramatic finger, pointing at nothing. “Oh no! Sparkling Justice is in danger! Masked Vindicator, you have to save her!”

She can’t stop the short little laugh that bubbles out of her. “Well, I think you do a  _very_  good job at delivering it.”

He snorts again, but it doesn’t sound mean-spirited. “Right. Maybe that’s what you think, but even King Shadow gets more love from the kids than I do.” He jabs his thumb to a corner of the room, where Nekomaru sits, fiddling with his phone in one hand, his costume helmet tucked beneath his other arm. “Not sure why they even cast a role for Yusei.”

“Well, it helps you pay the bills, doesn’t it?”

“Fair point.”

She’s called away, eventually, to have her make-up retouched. She goes, but not before she smiles at Fuyuhiko, if only to thank him for keeping her company.

He smiles back, his hand raised.

* * *

The next week, the four of them are scheduled for a meet-and-greet together.

The children flock to her in droves, each one of them so happy to finally meet Sparkling Justice  _in person_ , but King Shadow and Masked Vindicator attract their own fair share of fans.

(Yusei is little more than window-dressing for their group of magical characters, as he always is.)

One child excitedly approaches her, holding a crayon drawing in her little hands. She doesn’t say anything. She smiles shyly and shoves the drawing in Peko’s hands. (It’s a very bright drawing of Sparkling Justice with many pink and red hearts surrounding her.) Peko barely has time to thank her before the little girl runs back to her mother and buries her face against her mother’s leg.

Despite the… disagreeability of some of her co-workers, Peko has to admit, she doesn’t think she’ll ever tire of moments like these.

That is, until Arata slides up right next to her and loops his arm through hers.

“I’d be nothing without the strong and beautiful Sparkling Justice by my side!” he says to a group of park guests, completely in character.

Peko forces herself to smile, even though her mind is screaming. She’s  _Sparkling Justice_  right now. These guests paid to meet their hero. They did not pay to see Sparkling Justice suddenly flip Masked Vindicator over her shoulder. Just the thought of the looks of horror on all the children’s faces is enough to make her feel guilty for even  _considering_  it.

It comes to her suddenly. She’s not even thinking about it, but before she knows it, the word, “Elephants,” pops out of her mouth.

Arata looks at her, confused, and she’s sure he isn’t acting. “What was that, my Justice Princess?”

Peko fumbles. “I-I…”

She doesn’t need to explain, though. Fuyuhiko suddenly waves his arms and shouts, “Hey, Masked Vindicator! These people came all the way from Shanghai to see you! Why not give them one of your signature Vindication speeches?”

Arata pops back into character, like nothing was ever amiss. “Is that so? Then we can’t let them down!”

He unloops his arm from Peko’s to approach the excited family, and Peko releases the breath she’d been holding.

Discreetly, and without anyone else noticing, Fuyuhiko winks at her.

She always did consider Yusei to be a sorely underrated character.


	28. We'll Be Bulletproof

He flips the table, and Peko yanks on his arm; they both duck to the floor, right when the first shot rings out.

He crowds himself back, shoulders flush against the wood. Peko keeps her head low, one hand against his knee to ensure he’s still there.

“Oops,” Fuyuhiko says, with a crooked grin he can’t help.

 _In his defense,_  it’s not their fault. It’s the  _truth_  this time. They’re innocent bystanders in this whole thing, even if their reasons for being there aren’t entirely pure.

They had been invited to a conference with the heads of the city’s major crime factions. Neither of them had expected it, considering how much derision they still get from society, but with their foothold in the criminal underworld still rocky at best, it had been in their best interest to attend.

It was  _meant_  to be a peace conference. (Neither he nor Peko kept their guards down.)

They hadn’t arrived late, but the rest of the faction leaders were already at their places at the table: Ryou Sekiguchi from the Sekiguchi Clan, an older man with a pockmarked face, Ieyasu Tsukiyomi from the Razan Group, who was as wide as he was tall, and Kuno Ichihara from the Dusk Gang, a guy in an expensive suit who looked no older than twenty. (He was wearing a scowl that reminded Fuyuhiko of himself ten years ago.)

The remaining empty spot at the table was for the Kuzuryuu Clan; they’d given him and Peko only one chair. Just one, and the implication was not lost on them. (They’re walking on eggshells here. They won’t antagonize, but they won’t roll over either.) Despite Sekiguchi’s pointed look, or the way Ichihara smirked, neither he nor Peko had missed a beat. He sat down in the chair, like he was meant to, like they had offered, while Peko gracefully slid into his lap.

“Shall we commence?” Peko had said, still managing to look regal even balanced on his legs.

The conference had proceeded amiably, despite earlier attempts to derail their composure. They had agreed on most topics, and, when Peko had laid matters out in that intense, logical way she does, begrudgingly accepted the rest. Tensions had only come to a head when Tsukiyomi and Ichihara began arguing over the handling on some bookmaking scheme they’ve got going on. Even Peko’s attempts to deescalate the situation hadn’t helped. That’s when, in a fit of frustration, Ichihara had pulled out his gun.

None of them were supposed to bring any weapons. They were asked to leave them at the door. It seems Ichihara hadn’t listened.

Sekiguchi had responded, slamming his hand on the table and demanding he drop the gun right now. Instead Ichihara had fired the first shot.

(Fuyuhiko has to take back his previous assessment. Ichihara is  _not_  like he was ten years ago. He was never  _that_  bad.)

Now they’re huddling behind a table for safety while shots whiz over their heads. The room is a cacophony of shouts and noise. The doors had flown open as soon as all the associates and underlings waiting outside had heard the commotion.

Peko looks at him. She’s not smiling, but she doesn’t look angry. “It could’ve been worse,” she says.

She’s right.  _They_  could have been the targets of Ichihara’s ire. Ichihara could have brought more than a shitty air pistol. All things considered, it’s been a pretty good day.

None of them were supposed to bring any weapons. They were asked to leave them at the door. But Ichihara isn’t the only one willing to bend the rules for insurance. Fuyuhiko has a switchblade stashed in his back pocket, and Peko has a knife hidden beneath her sleeve. In their defense, it’s not like they planned to use them. They’re just there. Just in case…

Peko peeks over the table, as much as she knows she can handle without him getting nervous. “He’s exhausted most of his clip. His accuracy leaves much to be desired. He may be firing only warning shots, or he may be frazzled, but he’s most certainly inexperienced. None of his subordinates are carrying.” She throws him a knowing look. “We can handle them.”

Fuyuhiko sighs. “I love it when you talk like that.”

She smiles, finally, cheeks pink. He can never fucking handle it when she gets all intense like that, so he doesn’t try. He leans in, she does too, like gravity, and they meet like that in the middle.

The kiss only lasts for a second. They break apart when a stray pellet clips the edge of the table, showering the two of them in splintered wood.

He knows he should tell her, “Later,” when things have settled and they’re back home and bullets aren’t flying all over the room. There are more important things to deal with at the moment, technically speaking. What he ends up saying, with a playful grin, is, “One more. For luck.”

She smiles again, a little exasperated, a lot amused, as he cups her face between both hands and pecks her once more on the lips.


	29. Rabbit of the Moon

They say you’re never  _truly_  ready to be a parent.

That doesn’t stop him and Peko from trying their damn hardest. They’re both practical people. They know that something like this is about as life-changing as it gets, so they pull out all the stops to prepare. They read every damn book on the subject. They make a budget for the next year to make sure they can provide for their daughter. They volunteer to watch over Asahina’s or Otsuka’s kids when they need it. As the day steadily approaches, he’s feeling pretty damn good about becoming a father.

Their newborn has been home for less than a week, and already he’s wondering if he ever knew jack-shit at all.

It’s not that they hadn’t at least considered this kind of outcome. The books had been thorough about every little possibility, but actually  _dealing_  with it is  _so_  much harder than it is on paper. The baby is more or less well-behaved during the day, and for a second they can fool themselves into believing that they have it all down pat, but when the sun goes down, all bets are off.

She wakes in the middle of the night and cries well into the early morning. It takes hours, and the combined efforts of both him and Peko to get her back to sleep, and they repeat it all again the next night. He doesn’t remember what the back of his eyelids look like anymore.

Most nights, they can whittle away their options until they stumble upon the root of the problem, but this particular night, she’s not having any of it. They exhaust all their obvious routes: she’s not hungry, and her diaper is clean, and they pace all over the house trying to find a room she might like better in case anything in the environment is scaring her. She won’t accept her pacifier, and she ignores any of the toys they wave in her face.

When they waste an hour trying to come up with a solution that makes sense, they decide to throw in the towel, and focus all their efforts into just getting her back to bed. Peko tries everything she can think of: rocking her side-to-side, bouncing her up and down, fast and slow and everything in-between, but the baby just cries and cries and cries so much that he worries what it’ll do to her throat. Peko is no worse-for-wear, prominent shadows beneath her eyes.

“Here,” he offers, “my turn. I’ll take her.”

Peko tries not to look too relieved when she passes the baby to him.

“I’ll just rest for five minutes,” Peko says, right before collapsing into the armchair in the corner of the room. Within a second, her eyes are shut. It’s too loud, and she’s too frazzled to fall asleep, but if she manages it somehow, he’s not gonna complain.

He holds his daughter against his shoulder, one hand gently cupped behind her head while she wails.

“C’mon, kiddo, what’s the matter, huh? What’s got you so upset?” He bounces her up and down in his arms. She hiccups and sobs, in a way that makes him think she might finally be calming down, but then she turns her cheek against his shoulder and starts crying anew, loud and shrill, right in his ear.

He winces, fighting the urge to lean away. “Okay,  _okay._  I got it. Papa’s got it. It’s gonna be okay, okay? Papa’s got you. C’mon.”

He ends up pacing the perimeter of the room, rubbing slow circles against the baby’s back while he babbles nonsensically about anything that comes to mind: the morning weather, what they ate for dinner, his favorite book when he was a kid. He talks about the house. He talks about the sky. He talks about how happy he is that she’s finally home with them. He powers through the exhaustion, because he has to. He tries not to stay in one place for too long, because if he does, he might pass out. He talks and hums and sings, and there’s no rhyme or reason for any of it, he just knows he has to  _try._

“I’ll take her,” Peko says, from where she’s still curled up in her chair. She holds out her arms. “She might be hungry now.”

He’s happy for the tag-out. He’s about to pass her off when he finally realizes how quiet it is.

He checks.

The baby is breathing softly against his shoulder, out like a light and perfectly serene.

He shares an incredulous look with Peko.

“How did you do that?” Peko whispers.

He has to be honest. “I have no idea.”

Neither of them complain. He lays their daughter back into her bassinet, careful not to wake her again. It’s hard to believe such a  _tiny_  thing can make so much noise, but it’s fine. It’s a good sign. She’s a fighter. She’s not gonna go quietly into the night. That’s their daughter.

Peko stands beside him and leans her weight against his shoulder, her cheek against the side of his head. He wraps an arm around her waist, and entwines his fingers through hers.

“It’ll happen again tomorrow,” Peko murmurs against his temple.

“Probably.”

“I still have no idea what had her so upset.”

“Me neither.” He tightens his grip on her hand. “I hope one day she’ll tell us.”

Peko touches her lips to his cheek, and he can feel her smile against his skin. “Me too.”


End file.
